


Silent Songs

by TheGypsyQueen



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Cultural Differences, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Just kinda happened, Language Barrier, Man idk i just wanted to get into this guys head, Non-Graphic Violence, Past Violence, Spoilers, Stream of Consciousness, Violence, didn't mean it, shake it and see what rattles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:25:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGypsyQueen/pseuds/TheGypsyQueen
Summary: She is so different, so alien, so precious. She is all that kept him sane, all that kept him alive. In her world, she was all he had. But beneath the water, so much is different. The only constant is that she needs him, and he still needs her.





	1. Water Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so I couldn't contain this and I figured this would be as good a place to start posting fics as any. The Shape of Water was absolutely brilliant, and if you haven't seen it please go do so immediately. This work is hella spoiler-y, so I would not recommend reading this first. Once more for those in the back - SPOILERS AHEAD!
> 
> I guess it goes without saying I was inspired but I was so curious about "The Asset's" thought processes, his feelings and views and past. Obviously with the language barrier in the movie it's not like he can tell us. So I just picked up what few hints were there and ran all the way to left field with them and I wish I could say I'm sorry but I'm not. So cheers.

His heart hammers in his chest, his blood rushing hot in his veins. He cannot think, his thoughts are a storm raging within him, a confusing swirl of feeling and memories, hoped and fears. Too much has happened, too much has changed. He is not what he was. He has been too badly hurt. But that pain is fire in him, burning away everything unnecessary until all that is left is purpose. His thoughts come into focus and center on the only thing that matters.

Her.

Her moonlight skin is too white, pale and placid, stretched too tight over her delicate features. He searches desperately for a sign of life, a flicker or a twitch, listens for that beloved beat of her small, stubborn heart. He sings softly to her, to coax her awake as he did when she slept in his arms. Even shivering with chill she refused to leave his embrace and, curse his weakness, he had not the will to force the issue, could deny her nothing.

But now, she floats, silent and still. She does not nuzzle him or press her soft lips to his skin. Her small hands make no mysterious song-shapes and her body moves to no music she alone hears.

Did he not give her enough light? He gave her all he could. His own body aches but he can cope with pain to see her silent songs again.

She does not move. Pain blurs his mind and his song wavers but he forces it back and sings on, softly, gently.

If she does not wake he cannot-

_Ahh._

There, a twitch. And then her whole body rocks in motion, her new gills filling her with water breath. Her eyes are fear wide, her hands shaking as she reaches out-

He swoops in,pulling her close to croon to her. She shakes and heaves, struggling to learn how to use her gills, he thinks. He strokes her and holds her steady until her water-breath evens out some. And then he kisses her because he will die if he doesn't.

He sinks deeper, pulling her into the safety of the darkness. For all these nights she has guarded him and taken care of him in her land world, but now she is in his world and he will care for her, as his privilege and right.

He sings the name he heard the good land people call her and then the new name he alone may call her, that she may learn. She doesn't seem to recognize them but that is expected. So much has changed for them both, and they both have so much to learn. So he sings her new name again.

_Mate._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the risk of talking too much, I just wanted to touch on a few things real quick;
> 
> 1\. When Elisa and the Asset are in the water after the big confrontation on the dock, we finally hear him the way he's meant to sound in the environment he evolved for and it sort of sounds like whale song. That inspired me to think that his culture is built that way, revolving around that kind of song-like vocalization. The Asset was hardly ever quiet really, so vocalization is a big part of how he socializes. 
> 
> 2\. His behavior throughout the movie indicates that he is definitely social, which implies he has socialized before with non-humans. If he'd been socializing with only Amazon tribe humans, he'd probably understand Elisa better. So this leads me to think he is one of many, with a distinct culture and social structure that's likely pretty alien to Elisa's.
> 
> Yeah I think too much. Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think.


	2. No Fear

No male has ever had so fine a mate, he decides early on. 

Or so desperately precious.

He did have too little light to give her. She has water breath now, but it is flawed and difficult for her, as his land breath is for him. The rest of her body is still meant for land, though. She swims but slowly, struggling again even the gentler currents. She needs him as constantly as a newborn might. He cannot stray far from her, which is a problem, as she is too ungainly in water to hunt with him, and he  _ must _ hunt. She lost blood and needs to build her strength for their journey to come, and he must rebuild his light to strengthen her further.

She, with her cleverness, spots the solution he is forcibly ignoring right away, slowly using her hand songs to try to explain. He follows maybe half her meaning but can read her intentions well enough on her expressive face. She wants to await him on land. She wants to contact her tribe to assure them of her safety. He sees the reason of her request, clever and wise as she is, but hates it. He is craven for her, he knows. He fears her loss more than even giant caiman or the awful land male,  _ Strickland, _ with the pain stick. He is sick with dread of losing her, those horrid moments of her still, lifeless form hanging in the water still far too near. 

But just as she is his mate, he is hers, and even as it is his most sacred duty to protect her and the young she will bear, it is also his duty to trust her wisdom. Young though she is, she will be the matriarch of their clan, the one who will guide their young. He must trust her, must see that she knows he trusts her.

Besides, her tribe were kind people. They deserve to know their kin was safe with her mate.

He doesn't know the hand song for be careful, has no way to tell her that he is loathe to part with her. His song is a mix of troubled clicks and fearful trills, and she pulls him into her arms, stroking along his back ridges soothingly. Maybe the light bond helps her understand.

_ No fear,  _ she tells him with her hands as she releases him. She points to herself and makes another sign he doesn't understand.  _ No fear,  _ she hand-sings again. Telling him she'll be careful or safe? So much he doesn't understand. 

Still ill at ease, he makes the hand-songs back, a song she taught him early on.  _ I keep you safe, _ he sings with his hands,  _ away, I fear. _

Her soft lips pull down, a face shape he associates with her fear, sadness, and worry. He trills anxiously, hating himself for causing it. 

_ You, me, together,  _ her hands sing to him and he feels too big for his skin. 

_ Together,  _ he repeats that silent song for her.  _ Away,  _ he continues,  _ I fear. _

She clasps her hands over her heart, her bright eyes alight with something he dares not define.

But he knows she is right and ultimately, he helps her to shore (after a lengthy and thorough scouting for danger). His chest hurts like his spirit wants to tear free from him and chase after her as she wobbles unsteadily onto the sand. The sky is cloudy and dark and the oppressively chilly rain has chased any land people from the shore and she is alone, gingerly picking her way further onto land while smoothing her tattered clothes and her briny hair. 

He forces himself to turn and hunt. She must eat and so must he.

Later, back in the safety of the dark water, she accepts the sweetest meats from his hand. She is squeamish at first, likely preferring her food fire-charred as land people often do but she trusts him and he is gratified to feed her the choicest parts from what little he could find in these badly overfished waters. He will be glad to have her back in his river, where he can be sure of her safety with his kin and her well being with good hunting grounds. Even now she trembles with cold.

They must begin south in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, so, wow. Thank you for the comments and kudos. You guys rock! I don't even really know what to say but I definitely will continue this. I have a definite beginning, middle, and end planned out and have written ahead so no worries. 
> 
> So, actual notes:
> 
> 1\. I'm fiddling with social structure here. The Asset in the movie responded positively to Elisa. He's hostile at first to Giles but warms up after he realizes Giles isn't a threat. So he warms up fine to both sexes as long as he isn't being threatened and recieves postive feedback. Other than his obvious preference for Elisa, there's no reason to suspect his society isn't fairly egalitarian which isn't a super crazy idea for tribal societies. So I figure egalitarian with slight matriarchal leanings? Why not have some fun?
> 
> 2\. How does a fish-amphibian hominid cope with post traumatic stress disorder? You know what, let's start separation anxiety and work from there. We might even get crazy and address the developing codepedency.
> 
> 3\. Overfishing off the shores of Maryland in the 1960s sounds plausible but hell if I could find any data to confirm that. Anyone wanna correct me, lay it on me cause that frustrates me.
> 
> Anyway, see you all in about three days!


	3. Big Water

The first day of their journey is difficult. He has lost a great deal of strength during his captivity, and his poor mate’s land dwelling was hardly sufficient to rebuild it. Even just escaping the strange walled water pen they'd first fallen into had been hard. Swimming distances, along the shoreline in this cold dreary weather with little to no hunting in water that was often putrid with toxins and refuse the land people seemed to simply dump would have been hard if he was alone and at full strength. But he is weakened and guarding his precious mate. 

He deliberately starves himself for her sake, constantly skirting the boundary between making himself too weak to protect her from whatever unseen danger lurks beyond sight and worrying she needs more nourishment. He mated her several times before their flight to the water - he both fears and hopes she already carries their offspring. If she does, though, their time is short. He likely cannot get her home before she becomes unable to travel, and he must at least find a safe place with more food.

If she does not, he muses, it will be no great trial to mate her again. He'd known mating would be good, but he'd never imagined...

For now, though, he must turn his thoughts from the pleasurable memories of his mate’s willing and beautiful body to the more pressing business of getting her to safety.

Before their flight to the water, his mate's older male kin showed him large drawings. He'd seen similar things, during his transport after his capture but before he met his mate. He knew there were land songs for these things but he had trouble with land songs, could not mimic their hard and rough sounds. The older male had shown him the hand songs for it but it didn't translate, that he had no frame of reference for. It was for navigating. The older male had pointed to a spot near the top if the drawing.

“ We are here,” he'd said, slowly and speaking clearly. “ You are here.” He continued, tapping the spot again for emphasis. If the drawing corresponded to actual places… “ You must go this way, to home.” Callused, blunt, stained land fingers traced a path down and around green and brown - land?- through blue to a then strip of blue through a big blob of green, much lower. “ Home.” 

The male muttered to himself then, to quickly to follow, but he studied the map in earnest.

If the brown and green was land then the blue was…

_ Water?  _ he made the hand shape his mate had taught him, pointing at the blue.

“Yes,” the male said, nodding hard.”Ocean. Big salt water.”

He still hadn't been sure of what salt was, only that he liked it in his water and his mate was constantly obsessed with it. But big and water he knew.

Was it  **the** big water? He looked at the broad expanse of blue and determined that it must be. His father and uncles had sung of the big briny water, where fish we plenty and great beasts swam, even bigger than river dolphins. He'd planned to go there aa well so he could collect delicate and brightly colored shells, and impressive gift to woo a mate. 

But that was nights ago and now he is sure that the drawing was shown to him to help him navigate, and he is glad he studied it as he did, and for the long talks with the older kinsman. He knows now to to keep the setting sun and the shore on his right. Hopefully that way he can find the delta where his river empties into the sea.

All this knowledge does little to actually help him swim that distance though. And even as badly undernourished he is, his poor mate's endurance is by far worse. Her water breath is improving, aa long as she stays calm, but the instant she gets upset or panics she tries to breathe the wrong way and has to surface, choking up water. He in turn is terrified to leave her side for even a moment, in constant fear that she might drown without him. 

So their progress is slow, hindered further by the necessity of hiding from land people on the shore or on ugly, foul smelling, mechanized boats. After their first day, she is so exhausted she sobs in his embrace as they rest, and even though he dearly wants to, he can do little to ease her pain or anxiety with his own stomach paining him.

His lights are dimmed, and she notices, tracing their path with worried fingers that he grabs and presses to his lips

_ I'm sorry,  _ he hand sings to her, over and over. He is frustrated by how little he can tell her this way.

She only burrows deeper into his embrace in response, shoulders heaving, and he prepares himself for another cold and sleepless night, followed by the agony of pushing her onward in the morning.

He consoles himself with the hope of safety in his home river soon, and dreams of the life he'll build for her there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just to be clear, a lot of you left comments that literally made my day. Thank you guys! As I have time, I will try to respond to as many as I can. I'm sorry that this chapter is less face-meltingly cute and more cruel reality but anyways!
> 
> 1\. Okay so maps are a concrete representation of a thing that is also concrete (geography) but is expressed in abstracts (distance.) So though distance definitely exists, like time, the ways we measure it are more or less arbitrary, unless we're talking metric and its uses for science. But for our purposes here, distance is an abstract construct that means fuck all to our boy. So things like directions make sense to him but the to-scale nature of the map might be misleading him as to the actual distance he needs to travel. Just a little. Poor guy.
> 
> 2\. So the salt content suggested by Dr. Bob is an issue in terms of placing lover boy's actual home. Strickland describes it as a South American river, which narrows it down not at all, and salt water rivers are really not a thing. So I'm wondering if he just needs the salt and would usually get it from another source. Amazonian tribes are known to harvest salt from various sources and it is considered quite valuable - perhaps sacrifice worthy? Other possibility is that he hails from the brackish water where the Amazon meets the sea, which accounts for a massive area where the water is salty but not as salty as the sea. Buuuut that area is pretty well populated so....? The mystery continues.
> 
> Anyway, I'll see you all in another three days. Cheers!


	4. Hate Haze

He hates  _ Strickland _ . 

He's never known a feeling like that before his capture. He'd viewed all land people with a general and vague distaste until his capture, but nothing more. Most predators in the river were annoying. Giant caiman, far up river, were fearsome, and other river tribes were cause for concern. Hate was as foreign to him as anything else he'd seen during his capture, but he'd become intimately familiar with its decaying grip on his spirit.

By gods and spirits alike, he  **hated** that land male. 

He'd hated that awful creature from the first and to the quick of his spirit. Everything about that male’s dark, cavernous eyes and aggressive stance had promised pain, and his sickly sweet scent spoke of death and decay, like rotting fruit.

Never had he hated and never had he feared any creature so violently and completely.

He'd been swimming with his two sisters and his youngest cousin, a strong and foolhardy little male, taking the young ones to let them practice hunting and fighting away from the adults. He liked the young ones. Playing with them was good, though it has often made him yearn for his mate and their own young. 

He'd been watching his youngest sister play in a swirl of eddies when the first net hit him, missing the young ones. As an adult, his proud male coloring and light made him very visible in the ruddy water during the daytime, but the muddy reddish browns on the spawnlings rendered them nearly invisible. He hissed at the younglings and his sisters obediently turned and fled into the darkness of deep water, back to the tribe to alert the others of  danger. But his cousin, stubborn little fool, dove towards him, baby fangs and claws tearing at the net. He'd bitten through a few fishing nets of his own but this was different, harder and thicker. 

His cousin ignored his commands to flee and the two of them tore furiously at the net from opposite sides. Then a loud sound startled them. Then the smell of blood… his cousin’s. The poor spawnling shrieked in terror before sinking down to the bottom of the river.

There was no choice but to protect his cousin, surging out of the water to attract the attacker’s attention.

The pain stick had greeted him. He hated the pain stick as much as the male who wielded it. There was nothing to compare it to, nothing in his foolish juvenile years chasing after his older cousins that came close. He'd been bitten by everything in the river with a mouth, crashed into rocks, rammed by massive arapaima. He'd been snared on a trailing fishing line, multiple hooks attached to one line and strung beneath two branches, one of the land tribes more annoying traps for fish. He'd managed to get all but two sadistic hooks embedded in his flesh and it had taken his tribe hours to free him, all while the river current pulled him against the hooks. And even that pain dulled before the blinding agony of that cursed pain stick.

And in the hands of that foul male…

Strickland was his name song, and he’d made sure his captive heard it. He'd wanted his quarry to know who had taken him, and although he couldn't make the song himself, he'd never forget it. 

Sadistic, evil, monstrous Strickland had been smug and comfortable in his belief that his prey was nothing but a dumb beast, a monster that his gods wanted to suffer. Strickland saw himself as the divine instrument to inflict that suffering and took a terrifying degree of pleasure in the role. More than once, he'd watched with dawning horror as Strickland grew hard during their torture sessions, especially when the agony rendered his constant distress songs silent, but whatever cruel land gods held him now chose not to inspire Strickland to visit that particular torture on him. Just everything else imaginable.

The travel to the cold place where he found his mate was slow, hindered by Strickland’s need to beat him at least once a day. He'd wondered why Strickland needed it so much, early on when he still had his strength and will to fight. Maybe Strickland had thought to tame him, break him like a beast of burden as land people did to some creatures. Or maybe Strickland simply liked torturing. But, to his shame, it stopped mattering around the sixth time Strickland dislocated his jaw on both sides. He gave up his fighting then, becoming more docile. He told himself he was waiting for the best moment to strike, conserving his strength, but he knew in his spirit that he was just so tired of pain.

It didn't stop Strickland from beating him, but he did get the smug satisfaction of seeing Strickland's pleasure thwarted - it was apparently not as much fun torturing a docile victim. 

How he  **hated** that male.

Which made his gratitude toward Strickland so much more confusing.

Strickland had stolen him from his home, hurt his young cousin (he prayed it was only hurt, nothing more), tortured him nearly to death, tried to kill him on at least three separate occasions, and had tried to kill his mate. Biting off the male’s fingers had given him some of the greatest and most sickening joy he’d ever felt, and he’d hated Strickland even for that.

But without Strickland, he would never have found his mate.

Sitting on the shore of a tiny island, wane sunlight making her hair shine as she combs her fingers through it, she is as fine and lovely as she ever was. If anything, more so, as he didn’t understand her loveliness at first, saw only another loathsome land person who would either ignore what was being done to him or help in the doing of it. But she awoke him from the hate haze he was under, showed him softness and kindness. She’d risked so much for him, protected him, fed him, without ever being disappointed that he, as her mate, was not doing such for her. She was a gift that he intended to cherish for all his days.

And he had Strickland to thank for her. How could he hate the male so much and be so grateful to him at the same time?

He thanked Strickland’s spirit even as he regretted killing him so quickly. 

A soft tap on his shoulder steals his attention, and he blinks at his mate. Her lips are upturned - she calls it a smile. It means she is happy. She always smiles when she looks at him.

_ We go more today?  _ She asks in her silent song.

_ No,  _ he replies, though that haven’t covered nearly the distance that he’d hoped to today.  _ We rest today.  _ And her smile turns mischievous because she tends to think rest means mate, and curse his body, but he halfway agrees. 

He can have no vengeance against Strickland. He’d fantasized often of how he would hurt the male, but those dark thoughts are dead within him, as dead as Strickland. As ever, his wise and clever female turns his thoughts to the light, to creating instead of destroying. 

Perhaps he endured Strickland’s torment for her. Perhaps it was his fate all along, and his time with Strickland gave him the strength he’d need to protect her. As she removes the tattered remains of her land clothes, which she still refuses to give up, and reveals herself to him, he realizes that if that is the truth of it, then it is worth it. He smooths a hand over her still-flat belly and pulls her into his lap.

Strickland would hate this, he realizes. The male hated his songs most, hated anything but silence and pain. This, his song thrumming and wrapping his beloved mate in comforting sound, nothing but pleasure and happiness for them both, is his vengeance against Strickland. He will sing his adoration of her and hope that every loving sound haunts Strickland’s spirit. He will take his revenge in living with joy and love.

What a sweet vengeance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, so many fabulous comments. Thank you all so much! I can't really answer many questions in the way of a yay or nay on Elisa getting knocked up or if The Asset's folks are gonna be totally accepting cause... well, I plan on writing about that. So we'll get there. But I appreciate the interest taken and love you guys for it! So onward!
> 
> 1\. This was a chapter I planned from the very early stages, literally moments after I walked out of the theater. I knew for sure I wanted to explore the nature of the The Asset's relationship with Strickland. Strickland was a fascinating antagonist, even though I hate him somewhat violently, and right from the start it seemed to me the relationship would be confusing for the Asset. How do you hate someone who gave you what you value most? It's not an easy question to ask or even begin to answer, and even though our guy doesn't seem the type to dwell much, it's not something that can be resolved quickly. Strickland left scars of all kinds on both the big guy and Elisa and we'll be revisiting them in some ways.  
> 2\. Strickland wanted silence. In a creepy, kinda sickening way. And the constant stream of sounds the Asset made must have absolutely irritated the living fuck out of him. It's a theme that courses the entire movie - Strickland didn't hate the Asset for anything he did, he hated the Asset for something that simply was, something the Asset can't even help. They were on a collision course with each other from minute one. But I was also struck with the way that collision occurred. Our guy seemed almost serene when he did. He didn't seem pleased or angry, just like he was in a bit of a hurry. I don't think I'm done exploring that moment. For all his sounds, the Asset did that deed in total silence.  
> 3\. This chapter has been the longest so far, and believe me, I edited it down. Even so, I'm hoping it wasn't too rambling. I actually cut the sexy scene I intended for this chapter in favor of having a more detailed one later on, so sorrynotsorry. 
> 
> See you guys in three days! Cheers!


	5. Moon Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: we're gonna earn the rating today! Smut in this chapter. Like a lot. Basically this whole chapter is smut, so if that's not your deal, you're gonna have to just skip this one. Okay? Okay.

They have stopped for the night. Days seem so short in these strange waters, even though he confident he has not been gone so long. He is sure that his tribe in his home river must be preparing for the rainy season. If he is right about how long his capture was, the rains must be little more than a full moon cycle away. He had hoped to beat the rainy season getting to his home river, that his new mate might enjoy her new surroundings for a bit before the chaos of torrential downpours overcame them, but he was beginning to suspect he might have underestimated the distance they had to travel. Though this worries him, he pushes that worry aside for now. If he allows himself to dwell on it, he will not rest, and his mate will not rest either. She is adorably tuned to him, but he does not want to worry her unduly. 

The hunting here is slightly better, and his luck was good. His belly is full and he cannot coax his mate to take another bite, so he gives the rest of his catch back to the water. He felt restless after, and set to swimming around and exploring the large pier they’d chosen to rest under. There are no islands or atolls in this area, and though the water is definitely warmer, the shore was still densely populated by land people. And this pier, massive compared to the version the land tribes near his river constructed from logs, is completely blocked off from above. It is clear land people don’t come down here, and aside from being grimy and foul-smelling, it seemed safe enough and even protects his mate from the open sky. 

She rests on the shore, up to her waist in water, combing her fingers through her hair. It no longer has the shine and softness he recalls from her land dwelling weeks ago, but is now brittle and briny. Her tattered clothes are barely holding together, but he can’t convince her to abandon them. Even her skin seems dry in spite of the water. Though she never complains with her silent songs or even gives up any evidence of her discomfort, he is sure she is unhappy with the state of things. He wishes he could soothe her pains and make her happy again, but he can’t make the water not briny, however much he wishes he could.

Still restless, bothered by his fitful thoughts and his inability to fix anything, he twists through the water, chasing a few fish away from her even though they wouldn’t dare approach her. He dives down to search through the sand for succulent shellfish, even though he knows she’s full. Still unsatisfied, he surges to the surfaces for a breach, hoping that exercise will soothe his uneasy mind… it feels nice but doesn’t really help, so he does it again just because he can. 

He dives a third time, enjoying the feeling of pushing himself, when he catches the scent of her. It stops him mid-stroke, and he twists in the water to re-orient himself towards her. His blood rushes through his gills so fast it sounds like a dull roar in his ears, his gut clenching as he remembers the other times he took that decadent scent into himself.

He surfaces in a rush, to find her staring at him already, one lip caught between her square, white teeth. Ah, he knows that look.

He lunges for the shore and she shoots to her feet, the telltale flicker of desire and nervousness in her eyes. Even after all this time she still gets nervous when he touches her, as though shy of his gaze on her body… her glorious, perfect, soft, tight body…

He reaches her just as she begins to back fully onto the shore, pressing quickly into her space. He looms over her small frame, separated from her body by only the most minute distance, but he will not cross that final breath of space between them until she invites him, and she knows that. Mating is a gift she gives him, not one he takes from her. 

Her breath leaves her lips with a soft  _ puh,  _ her eyes roving over his shoulders and chest hungrily. He puffs up to her gaze, as always, wanting her to find him attractive and desirable. He purrs his desire to her, letting her feel the way he wants her and she shivers, adorable little bumps raising on her skin. He adores the evidence of his effect on her. 

Her hands shake as she reaches for him, and as her fingers brush his collarbone, he presses forward to cross that final distance and pull her softness against him. She goes boneless in his embrace, which is new. The first time, and every time after, she grew bold when they touched, and let her brazen lips and hands command them both. He’d never forget the way she looked that first time, mouth open in a soundless gasp, hands fisted against his chest, hips slamming down as she rises and falls on him.

Her knees no longer hold her weight, and he fears his will not hold them both up for long, so he lowers her to the ground as her fingers trace the patterns of his scales and follow the trails of light that erupts along them at her touch. Those little, soft fingers have utterly  _ unmade  _ him and now those memories have him shaking with need. He lays her beneath him, caging her in with his limbs. He is ever fearful that she will disappear, some small, secret part of his spirit still not fully convinced she is not a spirit or a death dream, that he is still back in that ugly dark place and she is a vision for him to enjoy while his body dies. If he can surround her, then perhaps she will never fade.

But she is real, and she is needful of him, her hips arching up to his. He lets her, realizing he is enjoying this sight and sensation. He should have her beneath him more often. Why haven’t they done this before? In her land dwelling, there was simply not space. The easiest way for him to stay under water and for her to stay above it was to have her on top of him, and he’d had several life altering realizations when they did that. They have only mated once since they have begun their journey, and even then she sat astride his lap and he enjoyed being helpless to her pleasure. But now that he’s seen how she looks under him, he’s going to have to have this more often.

He nips lightly at her lips and she obliges him with one of her strange kisses. Mouthing a mate or child is not unheard of for his people but this, tongues sliding together in a wet and sensual dance, is uniquely hers and feels vaguely indecent but he can’t live without it now that he’s felt it. She usually wrestles his tongue with her own, and usually she wins their small war, but now she accepts his tongue in her mouth, lets him fill her mouth and press her into the sand beneath him. His hands roam her sides, irritated with her clothing. He wants to rip it off of her, but he knows it means much to her, so instead he pulls firmly on them until her trembling hands reach up to undo all the mysterious clasps that tie it together.

When she is finally bare to his gaze, he leans back on his haunches to take her. She so pale, she glows in the darkness like moonlight. His moon-skinned mate, with her soft breasts that rise and fall with every breath she takes, and her perfect thighs sliding together in need. He could stare at her for the rest of his days and simply feel blessed to behold such a wondrous sight. That she is his to keep and protect and mate still confounds him, that he was chosen to be hers. What had he done to deserve such a gift?

Beneath him, she lets out a long, shaky breath and shifts her hips, drawing him back to the moment with her. He has learned how to touch her, and when he palms her breasts in his hands, she sighs. He squeezes gently, watching her pale flesh spill between his dark fingers. He trails one hand up to cup her throat, feeling each life giving breath she takes. He is frightened and amazed by how frail she is, how little separates her from death. A flick of his claws would be all it would take… but she trusts him and he values her more than his own life, and he sings in awe and adoration for it.

He teases her nipples with his other hand. She is small in every way, and has taught him how to stoke her need to help her receive him. She sucks in a sharp breath through her small teeth as he gentle drags his finger in a circle around the tight, dusky pink bud. His gentle touches are not what she wants, he knows, but he takes great pleasure in this control she’s allowed him, and he wants to draw it out.

Releasing her throat, he trails his sheathed claws down her side. He knews from experience that faint red lines will appear in his trail, another testament to her fragility. Her boundless trust in him is both humbling and powerfully arousing, and when she arches her hips to his again, he feels his composure beginning to crack. Why tease her when he can be inside her? Surely that’s a much better plan.

Need clouds his mind, overcoming all tender thoughts, and both of his hands grasp her thighs, lifting her up to his hips. Her mouth drops open and her eyes grow wide, staring at him with a need that echoes his own. It’s enough to drive a male wild, the way she looks him. The pressure behind his slit is maddening, and his thoughts grow murkier than river water. He grinds his own sensitive slit to hers, his song becoming garbled. It hurts, to be trapped by his own body and unable to fill hers, but the pressure and friction feels good, so good. 

But then soft, thin fingers gently slide up and down his slit, tracing his hidden length within, and he looks down to find his clever mate has snuck a hand between them to stroke him. He growls, loudly enough to startle her, but she meets his gaze boldly and continues right along until his slit is spread and his length emerges into her hand. He grabs her hand away. He’s too sensitive, and by gods and spirits alike, he will not find his bliss until he’s given the same to her. 

She is so light, it takes only a few movements to flip her to her stomach and pull her hips up. Her secret, female flesh is visible like this and though her body is trembling, he takes a moment to admire the delicate view. She is so different from the females of his people, whose flesh is guarded like his, beneath tough hide and scales. But not his mate, who is open and dripping onto the sand. His song stutters again, broken by a needy growl. He hasn’t taken her with his mouth yet, has he? He doesn’t believe he has. If there was room in his heart for shame, he’d have felt it, but she has left no room for anything but lust and adoration. She smells so good, though his body throbs painfully, he thinks that he can stand to tease her a little more.

So, he lowers himself down and, holding her hips to prevent her escape, he begins to lick her. He only wants to taste at first, to see if she is as delicious as she smells, but his mate tries to jerk away from his grasp. They’ve never done this before, and he probably should have tried it when she could see him, but he can’t be bothered to really care at the moment. He’s discovered she tastes better than the sea, briny and earthy and faintly sweet, and like nothing he’s ever tasted before in his life. He’s loathe to give up this new treat, and keeps his grip on her hips. He works his tongue and rough lips against her, deep as he can into her softness, and her attempts to escape his grasp slowly change direction until she is pressing back to him, seeking more friction. He is happy to supply it.

He finds that little pearl she showed him early on, and lavishes it with attention. He takes immense satisfaction in the way her hips jerk and her hands reach back for him, swatting uselessly against his hands and his head ridges. He knows she’s near her bliss, he can always tell by the way her scent grows and the way her thighs tremble. So he abandons her pearl and plunges his tongue into her warm depths. He can feel so much with his tongue, the way she quivers and pulses and clenches. He decides he wants that on his length, so he draws that little pearl between his lips and flicks his tongue at it, listening happily as his precious mate’s breath sucks in hard and stops, her back arching at her softness pressed back against his face, grinding mindlessly for a perfect moment, before she goes limp in his grasp. 

He gives her a few more gentle licks, enjoying her taste, before pulling himself upright to admire his handiwork. She is gasping, hands fisted in the sand, thighs wet and spread before him. The view of her hindquarters is arresting, he realizes, and he decides he needs to spend more time behind her as well. It is a good thing, he thinks, that they have a lifetime to enjoy each other, because he’s not sure he’ll ever have enough.

He strokes the moon-skin of her hindquarters reverently, struck again by the difference in their skin. What skin will their offspring have, he wonders? His scales and dark flesh or her soft paleness? Perhaps they will have his scales, but brighter, like his mother’s were, and her moon-skin. They will be beautiful and perfect no matter what, but secretly, in his spirit, he hopes for iridescent scales and moon-skin. Then he thinks of her swelling with their offspring and need fogs his thoughts again.

He pulls her his back to him again and gentle presses himself to her soft, wet flesh. She is so very warm, and incredibly soft. He probes her with a finger first, to make sure she is ready for him, and she surprises him by rocking back onto his hand. His song devolves again into a rumbling growl, watching his finger disappear within her, and he knows he cannot wait a second longer, he will die without-

He angles himself and sheaths inside her as quickly as he can, jarring the breath out her. She clenches him inside, robbing him of thought for a long moment, but he remembers to stroke her back and sides, crooning and purring to her. She doesn’t respond, and when he looks, her eyes are squeezed shut. She’s never made that face shape with him before. He trills for her attention, leaning over her to nip softly at her shoulder. Her eyes open, dark and shimmering, and she gazes at him.

He releases her hips to give her a hand song.  _ You, me, together. Forever,  _ he tells her, which is the best song he has to tell her how much he adores her, how perfect and wonderful she is. And her eyes leak water, which is at odds with the soft smile she gives him. He’s not sure if he should be alarmed or not, but then she goes down to her elbows.

_ Take me, _ she hand-sings.

He needs no further encouragement.

His world shrinks. Nothing exists beyond this small patch of sand and his mate. Even he is nothing but an extension of her. She is  _ everything, _ his life, his purpose, even his spirit. All that is consists of her warmth and the way she clenches on his length as he moves inside her. Every time he withdraws from her a void gnaws at him from within, but every thrust back into her nourishes something in his spirit. He braces his knees more firmly in the sand, grasps her hips again, and straightens his back for more leverage. His thrusts turn sharp, powerful, and he watches in awe as her body jars each times his hips slam into the cushion of her hindquarters. She presses back into each of his thrusts, writhing in his grasp, hands clenching and unclenching in the sand. He sings for her, loud growls and purrs that are beginning to lose their rhythm as his own bliss sneaks ever closer.

But he’s not ready for that yet, though in his desperate mind it’s hard remember why. He leans over her, his chest to her back, as their mating begins to devolve into mindless rutting. It feels so  _ good,  _ and he wishes to any god listening that he had the songs to tell her how incredible she feels, how tight and hot and soft and perfect...   

He finds a clear spot in his thoughts, and he uses that clarity to reach around her hip and rub that tiny pearl at the top of her slit with his thumb. Once, twice, and oh, how she moves beneath him, mouth open in a silent scream and back locked against his chest and her already tight sheath gripping him like a  _ fist _ and it’s too much, too much and never enough-

His growl stutters and devolves into a long, desperate groan as he grinds mindlessly into, filling her. Everything is covered in a soft, hazy, blankness, and before he collapses on top of her, he rolls to his side and pulls her down with him. She is soft and limp in his embrace and he nuzzles her neck as she takes a deep breath and lets it out. Then she curls and presses herself more firmly against his chest, eyes closing.

He watches her a while before sleep claims him as well, his thoughts at peace.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, for someone who loves writing smut as much as I do, this was a fucking challenge (haha, see what I did there?). How the hell do you build sexual tension between characters who have such a limited shared vocabulary. Not much in what they do have can have sexual connotations, so yeah. I did the best I could, and I hope you guys liked it.
> 
> 1\. So, the Asset's nose. Kind of a mixed bag there. First off all, with those teeth, claws, and forward facing eyes, we are definitely dealing with a predator, probably an apex predator. The movie shows him scenting things, so there's evidence that he's got a pretty good sense of smell. Taking into consideration the terrible visibility in most South American rivers, I think it's a fair bet to say he's probably gonna be able to smell just about anything in range, so it stands to reason he can scent an aroused mate, especially in low visibility waters where visual cues are likely not forthcoming.  
> 2\. No I didn't go into excruciating detail about his fish-man dick, even though it cost part of my soul to not do that. I really, really wanted to. The thing is, underneath all the ridges and gills and scales, he's a guy. He's not thinking about his own junk any more than he has to beyond what feels good inside his lady. Maybe some day I'll write a sister/epilogue from Elisa's perspective. Then I can lovingly describe it for pages.  
> 3\. I wasn't able to have this beta'ed. If you find a problem, let me know.


	6. Name Song

He never thought he’d develop such affection for a person’s hands. 

_ E-L-I-S-A,  _ he sings with his hands and his sounds all at once. It sort of sounds like her land name-song. He can get the long sounds and the hiss right but the sound in the middle is harder, so it sounds more like “ Eeeeee-aaaye-sssss-aaaahhhh.” 

She smiles for him, that alien upturn to her lips. His own are so much firmer. His facial expressions revolve around his eyes and gills, his lips only serve to guard his mouth as he swims or pull back from his fangs in aggression. Of course, now he can use them for her strange  _ kisses. _

_ My name,  _ she sings with her hands. Land people do not call their sounds songs. They have other ways of communicating. His mate showed him the hand-song for it but he doesn’t know the land-sound for it. He has learned so much from her but still there is still so much he doesn’t know.

They have stopped in warmer water, lurking under a long wooden structure land people have built over the water. They walk upon the structure, eating and making their short, rough sounds and laughing. He recognizes that sound from her kin. It means they are happy. There are even young up there. 

He’s never studied land people offspring before.

He points at the structure. She makes a hand-song for it. They play this game sometimes, sharing their songs with each other. She has trouble hearing all of his, but he watches her hands closely for the smallest twitches. He points at a land youth, and she makes another.

_ Child?  _ He repeats. She corrects his fingers slightly, smiling. Encouraged, he continues.  _ Many child? _ _   
_

_ Children, _ she corrects him, still smiling. A faint sense of anticipation pools in his stomach but he ignores it. He points to a male and she hand-sings again, then to a female. He wonders what mates are, so he indicates between them and she makes a shape he interprets as  _ mates. _ So their game goes. He is learning many of her hand-songs today, and each one gained is a new treasure, a new thing that he can share with her. He will teach his whole tribe to understand her silent songs and she will never feel as he did, stranded amongst aliens, a stranger in strange waters with no sympathetic spirit to sing to. 

Until she came.

Her smile turns soft, her eyes relaxing and her fingers lingering on his arm. She has looked at him like this before, something in her eyes like happiness and pain and need all mixed up and every time she does, he is drawn into the current of her spirit inexorably. He croons to her, and her eyes flutter closed. His silent moon-skin mate never sings a single thing but she reacts to his songs like they are a physical touch. He can caress her with his hands and his voice all at the same time. Has any male ever been so blessed?

She opens her eyes and slips beneath the water. It is murky here and there are few fish. It is hard to breathe. They cannot remain long but he knows being near familiar things, near land people, gives her some happiness. He can deny her nothing. He follows her down into the murk.

Her eyes are curious when he meets her gaze, swimming a lazy circle around her. She seems to enjoy watching him swim. She watches him move with wide eyes, and he can’t resist a being a bit boastful as he does, for her sake. Perhaps not every turn needs a dramatic flourish, but what male could resist, when his mate watches so raptly? There’s a touch of envy in her gaze as well, and he guesses she wishes she could swim as well as he can. Sometimes when they stop for the night she seems angry with herself. She always asks to go farther, and he thinks she’d swim to exhaustion if he let her. His light is coming back, though, and maybe after he’s strengthened her gills he can try to give her some webbing on her feet, change the way her legs move… something to help her swim better?

She reaches out for him and he swims into her grasp, his thoughts scattering before recentering on her.

_ My name, _ she sings, though her hands seem be smaller than usual, her silent songs closer to her body. His head tilts in curiosity, wondering what she’s trying to sing for him.  _ My name?  _ She sings again, but this time he understands it a question.

_ E-L-I-S-A,  _ he replies quickly, hoping this appeases her somehow. But her eyes hold that same curiosity and intensity… urgency.

_ Your name?  _ Her hands tremble slightly as she makes the shapes. 

And all the waters go still around him.

His name? Has he not told her? No, he distinctly remembers-

His gills flair in embarrassment and he shies out her hands briefly to twist through the water, frustrated with himself. Yes, he sang his name for her. But he was in the murky fog of pain, recently released from one Strickland’s hateful  _ sessions _ , and then she appeared like a pale moonlight spirit. He’d seen her a few times, and she’d brought those delicious little white treats that tasted and looked like eggs but better, firmer. He wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t dreamed her, or that she wasn’t some kindly land spirit, ashamed of her peoples’ actions and attempting to make reparations. If she was a spirit then he had to sing his name to her, so he tried, but hurt and sick and in not nearly enough water his songs were garbled. She didn’t understand their importance.

He swims back to her, encircling her waist with his hands. She’s tense, likely trying to understand why he swam away. He doesn’t have a way to tell that he’s embarrassed for the way he behaved when they first met and he’s sort of glad for that, so he focuses on getting her to meet his gaze. It’s tricky - when she’s unsure or nervous, she doesn’t like to meet his eyes. When he finally manages to get her to meet his gaze, he gestures to her ears. She tilts her head up and down when she understands he means for her to listen, and then he sings.

Rather than the short, rough sounds of her people, the names his people sing for each other are long. His describes the traits his parents wished for him, his lineage, his tribe. It is all that that makes up who he is. But now he adds a final bit to his song, the last he adds before he becomes a father, and declares himself  _ mate of Eee-isssaaahh. _

She seems to recognize her name in his song, but only stares, eyes wide.

_ Big name, _ she finally hand-sings. He chuffs in amusement.  _ Name this?  _ She asks, gesturing to her hands. He thinks he understands. A name-song like hers, with hands. Something she can call him. He likes that, a name for him that is hers alone. 

He thinks about having her call him  _ mate, _ but as gratifying as that is, he doesn’t want his tribe to use that song to refer to him when speaking to her. Finally, he gives up and shrugs his shoulders, as he’s seen her do. Her lips bunch up and her nose scrunches, making her whole face look squashed in a way that’s both adorable and a little alarming.    
  
Finally, her eyes light up and she makes a two hand shapes that involve both her hands. He doesn’t recognize either. But he accepts it, as she smiles broadly, and that is her name-song for him now. It means all the more that she chose it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to stop and say, thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys are all amazing. I am so appreciative of the kudos and the comments. Every single one of you makes my day, thank you so much.
> 
> Soooo anyway!
> 
> 1\. Names are weird. Really, really weird. Obviously our boy's name ain't George (Jorge? He is South American). So let's break it down. A) The concept of a name seems to be more or less universal to humans. We like naming things, we like categorizing them. Though we have literally no indication that the big guy and his species share the same obsession we do, we do have two important clues. Firstly, he exhibits a solid sense of self. He recognizes himself as separate from others, which he demonstrates by his pressing need to communicate and make apologies, but more on that later. Secondly, he recognizes the autonomy of others, and recognizes individual differences between them. These two things hints that, culturally, he recognizes individuality and therefore, logically, he likely has a way to designate one individual from another. B) We have few cultural clues from the big guy, other than the fact that he's obviously social and sentient. I just followed broad logical paths to arrive at conclusions like tribal, social, equitable, secretive, and stuff like that. I took the inspirations from the sounds he made in the last scene of the movie and ran all the way to left field with the "songs" concept (no regrets), but holding to that theme, how does one sing a name? Answer: not quickly. C) Sooo this is less logical and more just me, but to me, a name is the first gift a parent gives their child. I've never taken naming lightly, and the meaning of the name is critical, like a wish or a gift I'm giving to whoever I'm naming. So I obviously can't pick a name from a language that doesn't exist (I mean, I could probably make a language, but who as the time these days?) but then I got to thinking, what if naming held those same connotations for him, culturally? If so, maybe names are long, not only the traits the parents wish to give but also highlighting genetic relations and tribal roles as tribal cultures often do? And thus, we get hella long name-song.   
> 2\. Yes I'm weird, I can't help it, this is what I think about all day.  
> 3\. The name she chose for him is literal. It's "River God" in ASL. In honor of that moonstruck look on her face every time she looks at him that melts all my logic away like butter in a frying pan.   
> 4\. Still beta-less. Sorry if there are mistakes, let me know if you find one.


	7. Not Weak

The water grows warmer by the day. His mate sleeps better at night, There is more prey to hunt when they stop. She grows stronger by the day, and though her pace is still slow, she can swim longer than before. He grows stronger as well.

But still there is nothing familiar in the water they move through.

He’d hoped to move past areas of land tribes’ population, but they’d only found more the further they went and the warmer things got. Then their direction had turned, following the shore now towards the setting sun. He remember the navigation drawings from before and the new direction seemed right. There was food, at least, though they had to be careful to avoid being spotted by land people.

His light was returning as well. 

She delighted in it, tracing it on his skin with palpable joy.

_ You are well!  _ She sings to him with her hands, her face pulled up in happiness. 

_ Stronger, _ he silent-sings back.  _ Keep you safe. No worry. _

She gives him a look that mystifies him, seemingly happy and worried and angry all at once.  _ I keep you safe. Remember? _

He pauses to consider his answered. He still hasn’t learned all her hand-songs and doesn’t have many songs to answer her with. He wants to get this right. She is his mate, he knows, and she behaves as though she knows too. But the ways of her tribe were so different that the ways of his - he fears she doesn’t understand what he wants and expects from her.

What if her tribe doesn’t mate for life?

_ Yes,  _ he finally hand-sings back.  _ There, you protect. Here, I protect. Give food and protect. _

_ Not weak.  _ Her lips turn down and her face turns stubborn. He knows that look well, the determined slant to her eyes. Her songs may be silent but his female can scold with the best.  _ Not not NOT  _ \- she emphasizes that song with an extra hard flick of her thumb from her chin -  _ weak.  _ She makes a flurry of hand-songs at him, too fast for him to follow, and her gills flutter in her distress.

_ Slower, E-L-I-S-A. Your breath.  _ He tries to be calm but watching her chest heave and her gills struggle always distresses him.

She gives him a little silent snarl and unleashes another flurry of hand-songs on him before visibly trying to calm herself. 

_ Slower, my mate,  _ he encourages her, the songs that come more naturally to him fill the space between them. Her eyes lock on his last hand-song, and she repeats it, the curve of her fingers tapping against the side of her forehead. 

_ I am your mate?  _ She asks. She appears as mystified as he is when he confirms that she is. Has it not made sense to her? Perhaps land tribes do not give each other loving name-songs, to be shared between mates or between family. But before he can even try to explain her face screws up again and she glares at him.  _ I NOT weak. I protect you, you protect me. Together. _

_ Yes, together,  _ he agrees, singing his happiness that together was still a part of her thoughts.  _ You not weak. Strong. Beautiful.  _ He hopes he is using that last hand-song right, he is not sure. She’d made that one while looking at her red feet coverings. She’d been fond of them and he knew she admired them. He found them pretty, and assumed that was what the hand-song meant. Her skin flushes pink, and he thinks he might be close if not right. But her eyes are shimmering, her face tight. She is still upset.    


_ I slow,  _ she finally hand sings slowly. Some more hand songs follow and he doesn’t catch them all, she’s moving too fast again, but he gets the gist. She  _ is _ frustrated with herself, just as he thought. She fears slowing him down, of all things. He stares at her, at her trembling bottom lip and her stubborn gaze on the space between. Her hands give up on their songs, hanging at her sides in her own kind of silence.

So confounding, his mate.    
  
He puzzles over this new thing she’s given him. Her fears are his to assuage and he is grateful for each one she gives him, another chance to prove himself a good mate and strengthen their bond further. But this one is troubling. If she feared some foreign danger, he could simply defeat it for her. If she feared hunger or cold, he could simply feed and warm her. But she fears her own inability. He knows how to fix this but his light has only just begun to return. If he uses it to give her better ability to swim, he will not have enough left to heal either of them if they become injured or ill.

What’s more, changing her with light will not convince her of her own ability, only his. And as much as he’d like the gratification he’d gain from caring for her, he craves seeing her confident, as she was back in her land dwelling. His spirit seeks to free itself from his chest at the memory of her baring herself to him that first time, at once so soft-skinned and vulnerable and so confident. She wore her vulnerability like armor and he was in awe of her. He wants that back. He would see her confident again.

_ You, me, together,  _ he finally hand-sings to her, crooning the depth of how his spirit yearns for her into the water around them at the same time. She shivers, eyes focused on his hands as he clumsily makes the right shapes.  _ Forever, _ he adds that last emphatically. Her head goes up and down in agreement, even as the stubborn set of her chin wavers a little.  _ You slow, I slow. Together. I happy we together, forever. _   
  
He hates how stunted his hand-songs seem, how simplistic they are, how painfully little they convey of what he feels. His other song keeps crooning and purring, that she is  _ life,  _ life and moon and stars and rain and all that is good and wondrous in his world. He sings of the unthinking  _ need _ she inspires in him, how grateful he is for her, how lustful he is for her, how much hope she gives him…

Her eyes flick up to his and he fights to not blink, unwilling to break her gaze for anything.   
  
_ I happy,  _ she hand-sings, and shows him another shape that he thinks means  _ too  _ or  _ as well. _   
  
He chirps in joy and snatches her into his arms, relishing in the bubbles she releases and the upward tilt of her soft lips, even as her eyes still seem heavy with something dark he hasn’t yet chased away. He will wait for her to give him that shadow as well, though. A male could go mad chasing shadows in her labyrinthine mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovely people! Thank you guys again for the wonderful comments and kudos! No worries, this fic is progressing right along towards it's conclusion. Got it all planned out. Anyway, this chapter is, I think, a little weaker than the rest, but it was a necessary to lay foundation.
> 
> 1\. So when Elisa taught him what he interprets as "mate," what she actually did was "husband" and "wife." Given that we've established a tribal culture and he uses the word "mate" all the time (I say like I had nothing to with it), I'm gonna go with the idea that the word he uses to describe a bonded pair is gender neutral, as is the term to describe both individuals making up that pair. So the sign he's actually using is "husband" cause he doesn't recognize that "husband" and "wife" aren't interchangeable. Just a little linguistic fun.  
> 2\. Geographically, we've rounded Florida and are into the Gulf Coast. I figured that our boy would avoid open ocean and stick to the coastline, just following that around till he finds the right delta. Longer, but ultimately, safer. Kinda, anyway.  
> 3\. Beta. I have none. Still.


	8. In Spite

The day is dying slowly, and they have found a small river that empties into the big water. There are still land people about, so they wait off the shore for the cover of darkness to sneak up the river and hide there, in murky water and lush vegetation. He likes this new kind place they’ve come to. It reminds him of home. 

They watch the shore as it clears, as they often do. It comforts his mate in some way, to watch other land people. He worries over that, even as he is happy to provide her with something that brings her comfort. When they reach his river, there will be few land people. He hopes she will be happy with his tribe. 

They watch as a family disembarks from a boat, pulling along loads of fish. There is a young one with them, still toddling unsteadily, and an older youth chases the young one down before it wanders too far away, hefting the adventurous small one into his arms before chasing after his parents and other siblings. 

_ Children,  _ he hand-sings, and she bobs her head.

_ Yes, _ she replies, smiling as she watches the elder child put the young one down and grasp its hand firmly. The elder is definitely male, he decides, already beginning to show the muscles and stronger face structure common in land males, but the younger sibling is still far too small to tell. His mate smiles more as the little one attempts to escape again, only to be herded back by its older sibling towards the amused parents.

He takes a deep water breath. Now, he realizes, is as good a time as any.

_ E-L-I-S-A,  _ he hand sings, and she turns to him, still smiling.  _ Yours, mine? Children?  _ He asks slowly. Her face turns that delicate pink color, as it does when she is upset or needing his touch. He doesn’t think that is why she turns pink now, though.   
  
_ Our children?  _ Her hands shake as they move. He likes that first song, the  _ our. _ He likes the feeling of oneness it gives him, the sense of a shared future, a life for both of them. But the thought seems to distress her, so he presses his palm to her soft belly.

_ Later,  _ he assures her. He has determined that she is not carrying their offspring but he is hopeful for the future, when they have found his home river and returned to his tribe, and she has had a chance to settle there. She has endured much change, and he won’t force another on her, even if it means denying them both the pleasure mating gives.   
  
She makes a fast sequence of hand songs that he doesn’t understand, her lips pulled down and her eyes searching his. Not all females long for motherhood, he knows. His eldest sister had no desire for mate and offspring, and instead chose to be a huntress for the tribe. Some females were warriors and huntresses, not mothers, but he has never had this sense of his own mate.

If she does not want offspring? Then what? It pains him, but he cannot push that on her. Always he has dreamed of a mate and offspring of his own, but he will be content with only the one if she wishes. So much of his own will has been taken that he would never impose over hers.

_ Do not fear,  _ he sings to her in both ways, filling the water with sounds. Nearby, a few dolphins chitter back but he ignores them. Dolphins are sometimes friends, sometimes foes, but most often they are best ignored. 

_ Not fear,  _ she asserts in her silent way. She nibbles her lip with her teeth, thinking hard.  _ Like this- _ and she moves back and forth, hands clasped over her heart, her expression anxious. She stops and makes a hand song for him, waiting for him to figure it out.

This is a more dire game they play. It’s easy to point at things they can see and sing name-songs to each other, but it’s harder to share the things in their spirits.    
  
He repeats the hand song and then swims fretfully back and forth, then mimes the way she often stood in her land dwelling, one hand on her hip and the back of the other pressed to her mouth.   
  
_ Yes, worry,  _ she confirms before continuing.  _ I worry no children. _

Each movement of her hand is sharp, with a tone of finality, but he stares blankly at her hands, then at her face, searching for her meaning. Her lips pull down further, sensing he doesn’t understand, and she tries again.   
  
_ You, me,  _ and she makes a shape he doesn’t know. His gills flutter as he focuses on trying to determine what she’s trying to sing.  _ I, them,  _ she points to the shore. By the spirits, she must be trying to explain something very complicated because he’s not following her. She seems to be thinking the same because her gills are fluttering in distress. Suddenly, she slaps her hands together and gently touches his gills, then her own.  _ You change me. Make me- _ and she makes a shape he doesn’t understand. What does it mean, he wonders? Breathe? He doesn’t think that’s right, given the context. She tries again.  _ You, me,  _ and again the shape. 

_ No,  _ he tells her,  _ not understand. _ Her hands go up in frustration, fisting in her hair, and he reaches to gently pry her fingers loose. He loves her hair, even when it’s brittle and briny, and he doesn’t want her to hurt herself. She lets him move her hands, eyes searching for something to illustrate what she’s trying to tell him. After a moment she dives for the bottom and he follows her, curious and eager to understand, to end her frustration. 

She begins grabbing at small stones that litter the sandy bottom. The water is clear here, and the fading light is still good enough for her to see by. He begins gathering stones as well, bringing them to her. Maybe, he thinks, if he gives her stones she will be happy again? Maybe it will help her make him understand. 

She searches each stone, sorting them into groups by some mysterious method. Finally, she selects two small, round, black rocks that are distinctly similar, almost indistinguishable. She shows these to him, placing them in the sand between them. She points and makes a shape. 

_ Stone,  _ he repeats, understanding right away. 

_ Yes!  _ She confirms, smiling at him. He chirps happily back, proud to have pleased her. Next she takes a different stone, smaller than the two black stone and a pale sandy color, rougher around the edges. She sets this stone away from the other two, but still between where they float near the bottom. 

_ This stone,  _ the shape he doesn’t know reappears before she continues,  _ these stones. _ She takes the pale stone away, putting it behind her, and points at the black pair.  _ These stones,  _ a second shape he doesn’t know.

He puzzles over this display as she repeats it for him. What is she trying to sing? The colors of the stones? They’ve struggled with color in the past but that doesn’t seem to fit with their discussion about offspring. The two blacks are practically the same, and the pale one is the odd one out-

Suddenly, he thinks understands, and in a flurry of sand and water, he flits away to find some more items to use. He returns to her with two small pink shells and one sand dollar, which he arranges in the same way she arranged her stones. 

_ This stone different from these stones. These stones the same.  _ He tries. She studies his shells and then studies him, but whatever she sees pleases her because she launches herself into his embraces, raining his face with small, light kisses. He resists when she tries to pull away, the darker part of his mind urging him to pull her tighter to him and pleasure her. She insists, though, and continues with her hand-songs.

_ I worry no children. You, me, different. Many different. _

And he is lost again. He stares at her hands, lost, and her shoulders sink in disappointment. He growls in frustration. He hates to disappoint her. She should be able to look to him for anything, for everything. He pours her hand-songs over and over in his mind, searching for what he’s misunderstood. But he thinks he’s understood all her songs, which can’t be right, because that would mean-

He goes still, unblinking, staring off into the water over her shoulder. If he’s understood her hand songs then that means she thinks he cannot give her offspring. That his differences from her will prevent him from doing so. It means that she has worried about this since the beginning. That she  _ went with him  _ even though she thought he would never make her swell with new life. That she chose him  _ in spite _ of a failing she perceived from the very start. 

He has never once considered this a possibility. She is his mate, he has known this from the moment she first gave him music. He hasn’t always understood her, and he knows his courting has been less than perfect. But she accepted him, despite his weakness and failure to be her protector in those early days, and took him as her mate. His elders had always advised him when he was young and impatient to be grown that he would find his one mate and she would accept him, and together they would create new life. Of course, he’s sure the elders weren’t picturing the ethereal moon-skin beauty he’d found, but to be fair, he could never have imagined so fine a mate himself. 

But the fact remains - he is her mate, and she is his. He knows they are different, but land people are still  _ people.  _ The old laws say only that none of the river people may mate with animals, but land people are not animals. Sometimes, he thinks, they forget that, but not his precious female. She is definitely a person, and definitely his mate. And therefore, he concludes, she will bear their children. 

He comes out of his daze to find her watching him, chewing on her lip with anxious eyes. He pulls her back to him and nuzzles into the halo of her hair, floating around his head as she buries her face against his neck. He breathes her scent into him, again overcome with gratitude. After a long moment, he pulls her away by the shoulders and meets her gaze purposefully.

_ No,  _ he hand-sings to her.  _ You, me, not too different. _ Her eyes shimmer in the dimming light as she watches him, and he watches in awe as hope begins to rise like the sun in her eyes.  _ Our children beautiful. Same as you. _ He continues, and she cuts her gaze away, a small smile playing on her lips. How wonderful that he’s become not only used to her smiles, but joyful at the sight of them.  _ My mate,  _ he finally hand sings, and then nuzzles her neck because he doesn’t like any distance between them. He rests his hand on her flat stomach and she rests her hand on his.

His spirit would fly from his chest if it could, he is so pleased to have eased her of this fear. He hopes she shares his wonder and excitement for their future together, and his dreams of their offspring as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... I'm a little late and posting this from my phone at my bestie's house while my kiddo and my bestie's nephew play and I'm gonna be honest... Life feels real good right now. So, cheers, lovely people, and thank you for reading. You rock, and its gonna be fun riding this train to the end with you all.
> 
> 1\. Okay, pregnancy. Leaving aside the while issue of "is it even possible" for a later date, let's talk about our boy's thinking. I can't imagine that genetics are really something the big guy really knows about. But the movie does indicate that the fish guy has been in at least indirect contact with humans for some time so that indicates an awareness of humans, and we've already discussed his recognition of sentience and individuality in others. So put into a social context, in recognition of sentience, humans are people, but a different kind of people. And its not a long leap to conclude from that perspective that if things work sexually, then they will work reproductively. And that's about as complicated as our boy is willing to let the conversation get.  
> 2\. From experience, I tell you this - no matter which brand of conversation it is, there is never a good time for the baby conversation.


	9. Monster

They have found a delta, though it doesn’t lead to his river. It is a wide and fertile stretch of brackish water, full of fish and little scuttling creatures that resemble the crab and shrimp of his home river. In all, the whole delta reminds him of his home river, only it is still too cold to be truly comfortable, and there are far too many land people around, but when he and his mate venture up the river into the fresher water, they find ample places to hide.

They cannot remain, he knows, but he cannot deny her a brief rest. The fresh water seems to do her some good. Her skin seems healthier, and her hair less brittle. The briny smell slowly washes from her, and her confidence blooms in the shallow water. She smiles for him more, and plays with him. They’ve both been so focused on surviving, there’s been far too little time for these small joys, and he grieves for that. If he had been born a land person, or she a river person, things might have been different. Perhaps he’d be more acquainted with the way her whole face lights up when he surprises her or drags his fingers up her ribs, or the way she chases him through tangles of logs and roots. The hunting is good, and even better, it’s easy. He has plenty of time to actually enjoy having a mate, basking in her happiness and affection. He mates her in that delta, again with her beneath him, and she is still writhing in bliss when he joins her.

His light flickers strong that night, and he is pleased. He will change her again, he decides, and soon. The only question left is what he should change. He can only change one thing and save enough light to heal them if one of them becomes sick or injured.

They spend a day in the delta, flitting through little lagoons and tributaries, chasing shrimp and avoiding land people, before they have to move on. She is sad to go, and so is he, but they can’t stay. The slowly make their way downriver, back into the briny waters. It’s murky, the bottom of the river made of deep silt, and as they move along the bottom to avoid detection by land people, the silt stirs into the water. Even with his keen eyes, ears, and nose, it’s hard to stay on course. 

It is in that murk, so deep that the morning light above them is nearly blotted out, that he learns that how limited even his worst nightmares are. He never could have imagined what lurked in the water with them.

He is focused on a passing boat, the metal propeller far too close to the top of his mate’s head for comfort, and doesn’t notice the looming shape approaching through the silt. It is his mate who alerts him of the danger with a sudden flurry of bubbles as the only warning he gets before she dives past him, yanking him with her a ways by her uncannily strong grip on his arm. Jarred and confused, he pulls against her grip enough to slow her, and only then does he see the creature shoot past him.

The whole of its body is like a perfectly streamlined arrow. He can see gills and fins and he knows it’s a fish, and his mind instantly tries to confirm he’s seeing an arapaima - a long one, and definitely the widest, most angular one he’s ever seen. But he can’t justify the jagged set of the mouth, the beady, forward-facing eyes, the stiff, angular back fin. But then that slit of a mouth opens into an ungodly set of jaws, lined with row after row of jagged teeth.  _ Not an arapaima _ , he realizes in utter shock. It’s like a wolf-fish, a terrible foe in the river, but so much bigger. Something deep in the back of his mind screams  _ predator! _ at the sight, even before he comprehends that this monster is moving past him…

…  _ after his mate! _

Everything goes still for one horrific moment. He doesn’t understand why his whole body seems locked in utter defiance of his will to move, like he’s having the worst nightmare he’s ever had. He can see the monster tensing, preparing for the final lunge. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his mate, desperately trying to flee with her land limbs, unable to muster the strength or speed to get away, and still she tries to pull him with her.

And then, as though making up for the stillness, the world crashes back into motion, and control of his limbs comes screaming back, every instinct and thought ripping his mind and spirit apart to do the one most important thing he was born to do:

_ Defend her! _

He yanks his arm from her grasp and he lunges. In his home river, against a caiman or an aggressive dolphin, he might have flared his gills and ridges and hissed, intimidated the threat away rather than risk a fight that might wound him and attract other predators. He knows, somehow, that posturing will not stop this monster, that it neither understands nor cares how big or brightt or scary he looks. He knows that if he is to have a chance, his only option is to hit it hard and fast, to make his mate simply not worth the effort of killing him. 

He slams into the monster’s side with all the force he has, his song fading into the deepest, most threatening growl he can manage. It’s like slamming into the solid stone wall of his tank back in the dark place, if that stone wall was alive and bent on killing. He manages to push the creature off its course, but it thrashes and flings him away the way he might carelessly brush off an annoying perch. He throws himself back at its flank, stabbing and raking with his claws and teeth. He does much less damage that he expects to, and is confused that he is actually bleeding from the softer parts of his mouth and hands. 

But the beast seems dazed, so he tackles it again, aiming for its head. If the monster’s skin is like some kind of natural armor, then he’ll gouge the unarmored parts. No creature armors it’s eyes.

His instinct pays off and his claws strike true. The monster thrashes and he kicks with his legs, slamming his bony heels into its gills. 

Then, as fast as it appeared, it is gone, its trail marked by the fading scent of blood.

His first thought is to chase it down and rip it to shreds. That base creature would  _ dare _ stalk his mate? He will teach it and all its kind, and leave it as an offering to the big water to be consumed by lesser creatures. 

But then true thought returns and he spins to find his mate, watching him with wide eyes. He hurries to her side and she grabs him to herself, hands running over him and lips peppering his face with her soft kisses.

_ Fear! I fear!  _ Her shaking hands sing, and he grasps them in his bleeding grip.

_ No fear,  _ he assures her, forcing himself to stop growling like stone grinding on stone and purr for her sake, to comfort her.  _ No fear, I here. I protect. _

She wraps her arms around his neck and curls into him and he holds her close, breathing in her scent and feeling her precious little heart slamming against her ribs.

Spirits and gods, he came so close… just a breath later and… he might have  _ lost _ her. He barely restrains the agonized keening aching to free itself from his throat. 

That night, after far too little travel, he uses all of his light to change her. What use is it to save some for healing with monsters like that lurking in the water? He strengthens her gills and coaxes fins to grow along her feet and legs. Delighted, she spins and shoots through the water, easily thrice as fast as before. And though he aches and pants in exhaustion and his palms and lips are still raw and bleeding intermittently, he decides that the exchange is well worth his discomfort. 

If something happens to him, he needs to know she can flee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. But also not sorry. And also, thank you all again for being fabulous and leaving so many wonderful comments and kudos. Last chapter was a big one, but so is this one. So, notes!
> 
> 1\. It was a bull shark, if that wasn't painfully obvious. They like lurking in deltas and fresh water rivers, and they were responsible for probably all of the three shark attacks I could find records of in the '60s in the Gulf of Mexico (a couple were unconfirmed but listed as "probably bull shark." But sharks are actually kinda picky eaters so they go for what looks like familiar prey, which is why the shark in question went for Elisa, who looks like prey, versus our boy, an unknown.   
> 2\. Mate defense instincts are really intense. Especially in a highly social, monogamous, tribal society.  
> 3\. So, I got a theory, and I'm not going into a lot of details here, cause we're gonna discuss this later, in another chapter. But for now, let's just say that I've always been a big fan of Carl Jung's collective unconscious theory, and let's also say that something waaaaay back in the big guy's evolutionary line has a real intimate knowledge of what a shark is, why it's scary, and how to try to get it to go away.  
> 4\. So Elisa's new fins... I can't draw but I can describe... I was thinking some moderately extended webbing on her toes, but not so much as to inhibit bipedal walking, and then the rest of the fins extending from her outer calves. Legs together, with some moderate muscle shifting, she could get some serious speed up swimming mermaid style... I may or may not have done that one purpose.


	10. Bad Thoughts

The distance they make is much greater than ever before, and though she had expressed her worry to him that she was slowing him down, he now finds he is the one who needs to rest.

Plenty of easy hunting and restful nights under his watchful guard has done his mate well. Though he still fears she is thin, it’s easy to make out strong muscle in her frame as she moves, and every day she grows more confident with her new fins. They are elegant and thin, like she is, and they shimmer like moonlight on water as she moves. The light his people carry can only reform what is already there, and even though it doesn’t surprise him that her new fins are made of moonlight, he still watches her chase schools of minnows in adoration and awe. 

He will tell his tribe to sing of her coloring in her name-song. He hopes his elders choose something lovely, to match the female who will carry it. 

He’s also learned that without the strain of pushing herself too hard, his mate has been blessed with  _ humor.  _ How well she matches him - he is abuzz with longing to show her all his favorite hiding spots in his home river where they can wait to startle birds or tip over small boats, or how he and his little sisters like to irritate his father and uncles by moving their crab traps. He tries to imagine what new amusement she will teach him there, but he can’t. Her mind moves in ways he will never learn to predict. He looks forward to discovering all the joy she has to give him.

Even if, for now, he can’t seem to  _ feel  _ it. 

He  _ hurts.  _ Tight scars from his time with Strickland ache and pinch, and each one is a memory threatening to spill over his vision. He looks to his mate, combing her fingers through the sand as they move, and he sees that  _ monster  _ from days ago lunging at her. Sometimes the monster wears Strickland’s skin. Sometimes he thinks he smells Strickland’s breath, sickening sweet like decay, and he thinks he feels biting armor that makes his hands bleed even as he fights to defend-

He shakes his head, trying to rattle his dark thoughts loose. His song, the usual clicking and humming he uses to broadcast his calm and good mood to the water around him and to his mate, stutters and veers into darker growls. He cannot seem to stop the dark thinking. It pushes in on him, even though he doesn’t want it. It makes him feel helpless, like he felt when that monster opened it’s terror-lined maw for his mate, like he felt every time Strickland dragged him out of the water by the chain around his neck. He shakes his head again, but nothing comes loose.

He tries to push it back, push it down. He imagines one of his aunt’s fish baskets - a loosely woven basket of vines to keep fish in until time to eat. The fish swam within its confines, alive, but unable to escape. He tries to force the dark thinking into the imaginary basket, but even when he feels he’s done it, he can still see it, prowling and barely constrained. 

Warm hands on his face jar him from his thoughts and he jerks back, startled. He finds his mate in front of him in the water, studying him with worried eyes.

_ You okay? _ She asks. He remembers “okay” from their time in the land dwelling. It means well or alright. It was one of his favorite words to hear her land tribe say, because it sounded sort of like a teasing click one of his tribe might make. It had been a soft pop of familiarity in a strange, strange place. But rather than be comforted or pleased, the hand-song grinds in his mind, the remembered sound terribly irritating.

_ Yes, _ he tells, her though he knows he is short. He tries to push it down again - it is not her fault. None of it is. She didn’t capture him or hurt him. She didn’t summon the monster. And she certainly didn’t force him to dwell on it like he has been. She is good and precious and he will remember how blessed he is with her-

As they move through the water, her coverings catch on a bit of wood sticking up from the sand. As she turns to free herself, the catch becomes a tear, and half her coverings pull off. She releases a stream of bubbles in her distress, struggling to free the cloth from the wood. He swims over to help, pulling the snag away, but the damage has been done. Lips pulled down, she twirls in the water, struggling to find a way to reattach the clothing so that it covers her again.

And something in him simply  _ snaps. _

She has clung to these ridiculous coverings for far too long. He is amazed they have even lasted this far. It does not befit her or her new station in life any longer. She is his mate, the matriarch of their clan. She is one of the river people now and it is time she behaved as one and went as a respected female of his tribe should - without flimsy land coverings. 

A part of him, stunned by this sudden anger, watches in horror as his own hand reaches out and snatches the trailing fabric and gives it a firm pull - just hard enough to jar her a bit, but more than enough to rip the outer parts of her covering completely free. Surprised, she spins to face him, arms coming up to cover her chest and thighs squeezing together to hide her secret female flesh, though both are still concealed by still more of those cursed clothes. The act of hiding herself from his gaze infuriates him further.

He reaches out and grasps the thin strap of the upper part of her remaining covering but she thrashes against his grip, pushing him away. 

_ No!  _ She hand-sings, her face quickly changing from surprise to fury and… hurt. And the small part of him that watches his hands move like a stranger in his own mind echoes that hurt. She is his to care for, to protect. She should know only joy and safety from him.

What is  _ wrong _ with him? 

_ Yes!  _ He hand-sings right back, pressing into her space until they are a breath apart. Her eyes turning hard and angry, she doesn’t back away from him or break his stare.

_ No! Mine!  _ She hand-sings right in his face, ignoring him when he bares his fangs at her hands. Her hands move too fast for him to follow, and damn her, he doubts he’d understand even if he could keep up. In answer, before she’s even finished, he bellows a scream-song into the water around them, right in her face. Because if she’s going to do it, so is he. He scream-sings his rage and frustration, because where  _ are  _ they, where is home? How long is she going to cling to these stupid little things and doesn’t she know what it makes her look like? Like one of  _ them,  _ those vile, stupid creatures, it makes her look like  _ Strickland  _ and if he has to rip those ridiculous coverings from her, by gods and spirits alike, he will.

When he finishes, she is glaring at him like she wishes to spear him with her eyes, hands firmly covering her ears. Her lower lip is trembling and her dark eyes are baleful. Shame is creeping up in his gut but he pushes that back down because all he has room for right now is how furious he is. 

_ You want like them?  _ He asks, snapping his hands into the right shapes hard enough to hurt.  _ You want different from me!  _ He continues, without waiting for her reply.  _ Like Strickland!  _ He makes the shape for Strickland she showed him, a circle with his thumb and forefinger. 

_ No! _ She hand-sings back, her face stricken and her head shaking emphatically back and forth.  _ I hate Strickland! Why?  _ The last part of her silent-song hangs between them half-finished and halted by his cursed lack of understanding but he follows her meaning well enough. Why is he saying this? Why is he doing this? 

And he has some “whys” of his own. Why does this have to be so hard? Why does he have to be like this? Why can’t he just forget, bury Strickland in some forgotten corner of his mind and never let that cursed male haunt his thoughts ever again? Why is it so hard to just sing to his mate?    
Why did this happen to him?

_ Why, my mate?  _ She asks him slowly, inching closer to him. He flinches when she reaches for his face, and she withdraws her hand.  _ No fear. No worry. I protect. Keep you safe. _ She continues, and he chuffs humorlessly. Monsters lurk in these spirit-damned waters, monsters that are actually covered in  _ teeth, _ and his soft-skinned female with her thin arms and wide eyes will protect him?  _ Strickland dead.  _ He freezes. Somehow, she knows. And now shame builds in his gut again.  _ Gone. You, me, together. Forever?  _ She sings the last as a question, and he spots her lower lip trembling again.

Gods and spirits, he is such a fool.

He gathers her gently into his arms. Why was he so angry to begin with? Because of her land coverings. He feels her trying to pull away, knows she wants to explain why it’s important to her, but he already knows why, and he holds her tighter. He is letting Strickland haunt him again when he should be focusing on her, his very real and precious mate. 

As his father would say,  _ never ignore your blessings for pettiness. _

But she wrenches from his grasp and grabs his face. He blinks, surprised, but when she levels a glare on him, he decides he will be still and quiet and take whatever scolding she gives him.

_ Bad, back there,  _ she hand-sings, gesturing the way they’ve come. He moves his head up and down, in her fashion.  _ Hurt you, me.  _ She reaches out, tracing a scar on his shoulder with her finger, and he looks away, shamed again.  _ Strickland still here? _ She asks, pointing at his head.

Sometimes, he thinks he still hear hear Strickland’s quiet voice, sharp as blades, still whispering words he only half-understood but fully comprehended as awful. Calling him an  _ animal, goddamn pescado, right? What’s Spanish for fucking monster?You’re nothing more than a god-awful beast that never should’ve existed- _

_ Yes, _ he hand-sings back, inhaling deeply through his gills. 

She nods, watching him carefully.  _ Bad in there,  _ she points to his head again.  _ Bad - _ and she makes a shape he decides must mean thoughts, or thinking.  _ Safe here. You, me, together. I keep you safe from bad thoughts. _

How can he tell her how sorry he is? 

He swims away and quickly returns with the tattered remains of her clothes, keening. He shows it to her and bows his head in apology, and she shows him a hand shape.

_ Sorry, _ he repeats it, over and over until she stills his hands with her own. 

_ Okay, _ she hand-sings gently, offering him a thin, weak smile. He drags her back to his embrace, and her breaths are shuddering, but her grip on his shoulders his strong. 

For the first time, he wishes he could weep the way she does, so she could see and understand how badly he hurts, to know he’s given her pain. To tell her he is a fool for asking why it is so hard between them, because he knows why, and he is not some child that expects to be handed something of worth for no effort.

It is hard, this thing he has with her, because it is real. Real, and right, and worth every single sting and flinch and shivering sob she tries to hide even as she shelters in his embrace while he tries to smother the echo of Strickland’s voice emerging from hellish monster-jaws in his mind.

She is worth the fight, and he will try to be worth it as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. This time I really am sorry. But it had to be done. Strong relationships don't come out of sunshine and gum drops. Love needs pressure, and pressure makes diamonds. 
> 
> 1\. Post-traumatic stress disorder affects as many as 7.8% of Americans each year, and that's just Americans. I couldn't find stats for other countries, but I can only assume that the issue is just as prevalent if not more so in other places. That's a massive amount of people, but the trouble is, PTSD survivors are often type-cast as shell-shocked soldiers (and I am not in any way trying to make less of what vets go through). But a huge portion of these folks are not veterans. Many are abuse survivors. And I think it's fair to say our guy falls into that latter category. Symptoms often mimic anxiety, and can include (but are not limited to) invasive thoughts, agitation, hostility, and of course, the flashbacks that often get portrayed in the media. If you or someone you know is suffering from these symptoms, please, talk to a doctor. There is hope, it doesn't have to always be like this. If you need someone to talk to immediately, please visit https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/ptsd-hotline/. If nothing else, do it cause I care.  
> 2\. With sharks, it's all about the mouth. Sure the dermal scales are scary too, the thing is literally covered in teeth, but when you picture a shark, it's that mouth. And when I picture Strickland, I remember his mouth very clearly. He was fixated on silence, and constantly putting things in his mouth, like those candies. The two are starting to combine for our boy, and he's developing a sort antagonistic fixation on mouths with others. It's kinda weird but that's just where his thoughts went so I followed.   
> 3\. Invasive thoughts is a symptom I wanted to discuss in more detail because they play prominently in the big guy's specific brand of PTSD. So, they're basically a thought you don't want to have. Most people can just dismiss a thought like that. When it's a problem, though, it's a thought you don't want to have but can't stop thinking. It's like your brain presses the repeat button without your permission on a movie that really upsets you, but then your brain hid the remote and your just kinda stuck with this distressing movie playing on loop. You can try to ignore it, but it upsets you, and you're already upset your brain did this without asking you, so it's hard to ignore. You get to a certain point where it's impossible to ignore, and it's like spikes in your head. These types of thoughts just sort pop in, and it's hard to stop them, if not impossible. Our boy is suffering from this particular symptom in a bad way, and it's a long process to learn to cope.
> 
> Anyway, cheers. Please don't hate me too much. Thank you guys for your continuing awesomeness.


	11. Broken

They pass quiet days swimming ever onward, following the shore. He is exhausted, more than he has been, as though his furious outburst days before has drained him of his strength. His songs are quieter as well, and his mate shares fewer hand-songs. When they sleep, they stay back to back, and he misses the feel of her small, feminine form tucked against his body. He misses her humor, her smile, her soft kisses. He misses watching her marvel over her new fins. He misses so much, hates himself for the fit of rage that has wrought this true silence between them. His quiet mate never sang the way his people do, but she was still full to bursting with songs, never silent.

But now, silence yawns between them like a chasm and he doesn't know how to bridge it, no matter how desperately he wants to.

His hands ache for how many times he used them to sing  _ sorry _ to her, his sorrowful keening filling the water around them. He wishes they could go back to how they were but he knows, instinctively, that something has shifted between them and it can’t be put back. But every time he swims to her, uses the hand-songs and keens for her, she stills his hands and gives a small, sad smile and one single hand-song of her own;

_ Okay. _

Just  _ okay.  _ He’s not even really sure what  _ okay  _ means, he’s only assumed by context. And his assumption that it means  _ alright  _ or maybe  _ yes _ isn’t exactly comforting. He knows, has known from the start, that her thoughts twist and turn and move in ways he can never predict, that her mind is like the deepest part of his home river, where the tributaries are ever shifting and people, land and river alike, get lost and are never found. But he’d take the risk for just a glimpse of what she is thinking, just a breath of what she is feeling. 

He’d risk his life and more if she would just smile at him in happiness, not that sad ghost of a smile that makes her lips turn up in the right direction but doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He is constantly fighting back the all-consuming fear that somehow he has already  _ ruined  _ this thing that was growing between them. And he isn’t sure how, but he’s absolutely confident it is definitely Strickland’s fault, that something in him is now broken and Strickland is the one who broke it, but without Strickland, he’d never have found his mate-

He forces himself to stop, to push the bad thoughts back. It is so much worse since they encountered the monster. And the further they go, the clearer and warmer the water gets, the more they see similar creatures gliding effortlessly through the water. Each sighting terrifies him, forcing him to retreat carefully, not to flee as that would incite a predator’s instinct to chase, but to retreat, keeping himself between the beast and his mate. Each time they spot one, his hands shake and he has to fight to keep his voice even. He feels weak, and hates himself all the more. 

He tries to think of his father, best male he’s ever known, tries to imagine what his father would have done. But his father never would have allowed himself to be taken. He can’t imagine the pain stick would have felled the big warrior who raised him and his sisters. He can’t imagine Strickland beating his father. It all seems ridiculous, like imagining red water or an orange sky. He doesn’t know any male that is weak like he now is, and he doesn’t know how to make himself stronger.

But other males have saddened their mates.

He thought them fools. Not his father - his mother died when he was young, a sickness took her shortly after his younger sister was born, and his father never took another mate. But his uncles, his cousins… many of them had mates and many of them had earned their mate’s ire. His father had always been perfectly clear - his mate would be the most important blessing he would ever receive, and it was his duty to put her wellbeing and happiness above everything else. The idea that a male would ever hurt his mate, even just a small argument, had always been beyond him. But now he is here, and he has catastrophically not followed his father’s teachings, so now he struggles to remember his uncles and cousins’ actions.

His eldest uncle, his mother’s oldest brother, had taken a mate from a tribe downriver. Her people were too many, so she joined him with their tribe, rather than him joining her with her tribe, as was the usual. But soon after they were mated, she grew spirit-sick for her mother and sisters. She didn’t bond with her mate’s sisters and felt lonesome. Nothing his uncle did pleased her, and they argued often. Finally, his uncle went and fetched her sisters and brought them to visit her. He then did the same at least once a moon cycle and the pair welcomed their first son in harmony, and kept their bond through all their offspring and beyond. 

If there was something or someone he could simply fetch for her, he’d have done it by now! He growls in frustration. Maybe seeing her tribe would do her good, but he has no idea how to contact them and it is much more than a quick journey downriver to reach them. 

He watches her swimming ahead of him. Before, she would move from side to side, up and down. She was forever swimming off to investigate water grass, sunken boats, driftwood. She liked to feel the sand through her fingers, explore whatever little treasures she finds there. She’d amused them both a whole afternoon of swimming with a glass bottle. They’d taken turns looking through it to see the world distorted on the other side. 

And suddenly, an idea occurs to him. He doesn’t think it will fix what he has broken, but he can’t see how it will break it more. 

He dives down to better search the sand on the bottom as they move. She notices, turning to watch him for a moment, then continuing on her way. He finds what he wants fairly quickly - land people are still very present on the coast and their debris invades the water. He spends the rest of the day selecting only the best shells he can find, and by the time they stop, he has a selection of pretty ones to choose from. 

His mate notices his haul, glancing at it curiously, but then seems to decide against asking. She finds a secluded spot surrounded by water grass to rest in, and he approves it after checking for dangers. He is grateful they no longer need to sleep above water, thanks to her stronger gills. Though he still worries over her breathing, she has yet to show any distress, and the shore is so full of land people now, he doubts he could find a safe place anyway. As she nestles into the sea grass, stretching and rubbing her new fins, he circles the grass from outside it. She is invisible within, and once he satisfied with her safety, he settles on the sand to work in the remaining light. 

The sun sets as he works, carefully using the fishing hooks he found to bore holes in the nicest, prettiest shells. He discards all of them but three, all pale white with fine webbing of red. He braids fishing line into a cord, vowing internally that he’ll replace the harsh line with softer braids when he finds his home river. As night falls, a full moon rises, and the light stays strong enough for him to continue, but it is slow, delicate work.. 

Pausing in his work, he looks up at the wan light, shimmering through the water. A full moon. It has been a moon cycle since they began this journey. He can’t help the despair he keens into the water. He has come so far, found so much, and yet, he still has farther to go and more to learn. He wonders if he will ever find home. The thought saddens him, and he glances back at the water grass. He will find someplace, he decides, even if it is not his home river. He will find a safe place for her, for their future offspring, and somehow, he will fix the broken things inside him and he will be what she deserves.

Somehow. 

He goes back to his work, losing himself in the tedious process.

It seems like seconds later when his mate’s hands close over his. He looks up to meet her gaze, and he’s stunned anew.

It’s like the first time he looked her into her eyes, the first time he took in her strange, alien face, her paleness. The dark sweep of her eyelashes against the softness of her cheek, the way her small hand pushes a bit of her dark hair back from her face. Those lips, plump like ripe fruit, pressed together in worry, and those dark eyes, wide and wary, like a deep, bottomless pool full of silent secrets.

His first thought, the first clear thought he’d had in days, had been  _ such a beautiful spirit should never be afraid. _

She hasn’t changed, but she has. He has changed, but he hasn’t. 

She lowers her eyes to his hands, and he follows her gaze, stunned to find his fingers bloody. He’s worked them raw. She gently pries the fishhook out of his hand, setting it safely away, before taking his hand in her own. She moves slowly, warily, like he is a predator in her keeping, usually kind but known to bite. Her lips press together more tightly as she surveys the damage he’s done to his hand. He should feel shame, but he doesn’t. 

Everything feels so clear. He feels lighter, like he’s carried stones on his shoulders and suddenly decided to drop them. 

He gently pulls his hand from her, picking up the shells he’s bored holes into. While she watches intently, he slides them onto the braided cord, knotting them in place, before showing the finished product to her. Her eyes widen, and her lips part softly. They are underwater, but he hears that remembered soft breath that escapes when she does that -  _ puh. _

_ For me?  _ She asks, her hands moving slowly. 

In answer, he motions that she turn. She does, after studying him with wide eyes. He reaches around her to fasten it behind her neck, letting the shells lay against her collar bones as he does. She studies them, stroking them with her delicate finger tips.

He swims to her front, watching her. 

_ Sorry,  _ he signs to her, and she shakes her head, but he keeps going.  _ Sorry. I have bad thoughts.  _ He stops, frustrated, searching for a way to make her understand.  _ I more,  _ he finally tries, praying she will understand.  _ I more. _

She nods, slowly, fingers still tracing her new shells. 

_ Okay, _ she replies, reaching for him. And he still doesn’t know what  _ okay  _ really means, but she’s in his arms again, and he feels like he can breathe again. She pulls back and smiles. A real smile, even if it seems a bit jagged around the edges, and her eyes still look stark. 

Maybe something in him is broken, but if he can fix her smile, maybe he can fix that too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things before the notes: 1) I have the most wonderful readers. You guys are thoughtful and intelligent and reading your comments makes my whole life. Thank you. All of you just keep being you, cause that's amazing. And, 2) this chapter is dedicated to my husband. Loving me has never been easy for either of us, and every time I think I've finally driven him to the edge of that love, he shows me that there is no edge. Being with someone who's got trauma is hard. It's heartbreaking, soul-wrenching, exhausting. You can't save them from the ghosts in their own head. But every morning my husband gets up and stands guard between me and my own bad thoughts. Every mental trap I fall into, he is standing right there to pull me out. So, thank you, husband, for always helping me find "okay."
> 
> 1\. Being in a relationship with someone who is traumatized is in itself traumatizing. There's this idea that the people who love "damaged" people are somehow selfless givers in that relationship, infinitely understanding and immune to the pain their significant others put them through, or worse, are seen as selfish for daring to need to have feelings about what's happening. That shit is toxic. Loving our boy is fraught with trauma for Elisa, from start to happily ever after and beyond. Setting aside her own trauma (which is not insubstantial), she has to watch and endure someone she loves have flashbacks, panic attacks, and worst of all, lash out at her because he's terrified and frustrated and all that crap just has to go somewhere. So then she's stuck in this weird purgatory where, on the one hand, she's upset at him for acting like he did (I wonder if she remembered Strickland's breath and voice when her clothes ripped?) but on the other hand feels like she can't be upset at him because of all he's been through - of course he's going to lash out, who wouldn't? The point of all this; everyone deals in their own way, and trauma is never a contest. Both of these lovebirds need better coping skills but hey, it's a process. She needed time to work through her own triggers, and to learn to set her man apart from what she's afraid of.  
> 2\. As the big guy's PTSD begins to settle a bit and sprout some anxiety symptoms (moving away from frequent flashbacks and the more aggressive stuff), I just sorta naturally settled into hyper-vigilance. So this is an OCD/anxiety facet that focuses on being preventative. Think Mad-Eye Moody, if anyone here is a Potter fan. "Constant vigilance!" The thinking is that if he's watchful and careful and constantly on guard, bad things won't happen. It becomes a feedback loop that feeds into obsessive behavior (the thinking becomes causality-related, where bad things happen because he's not watching, instead of correctly allowing for random variables beyond one's control). It's not necessarily a good development but it is movement. This kind of behavior is not uncommon in comorbidity cases with PTSD/anxiety. I went this way cause I know it - hyper-vigilance with post-partum is basically hell.  
> 3\. So this was a good time to reflect back on some of the big guy's culture. So based on the fact that this culture almost definitely had to be tribal in nature, and since evidence in the movie pointed to a highly social society, I started wondering about privacy. So privacy as a cultural more varies widely from one culture to another, but in small, tightly woven groups which these tribes would have to be by necessity, it would be almost non-existent. The way we've established they communicate doesn't really leave much room for whispering, the way water conduct sounds and all. If you communicate a thing that way, the whole damn group is gonna know about it. Which means everyone is in everyone's dirty laundry. Obviously, Elisa has her own ideas of privacy, including her need for clothes. The idea of being completely bare, especially in a river, makes me shudder, and I'm a pretty body positive person. I can't imagine how Elisa will feel about it having come from the time and society she did.
> 
> Anyway, cheers all. And let me know what you think.


	12. Her Heart

They fall into a rhythm. They rise with the first light of dawn every morning, and he hunts. Sometimes she follows him, watching him with such focus that he can feel her gaze, distracting him from seeking prey. Other mornings, she stays wherever they’ve nested and waits for him to return. Though he enjoys her interest, he is especially fond of returning to her warm embrace with his catch. 

After they eat, they move on. They start slow in the morning - his mate is often sluggish first thing. They break mid-morning, as land people become more active on the surface and shore, and then push on, staying near the bottom and out of sight. He always swims over her, keeping his dark scales between her and surface. Her shimmering fins and moon-skin catch the light in a way that attracts attention but he knows that if a land person spots him from the surface, his dark color is dismissed as a shifting shadow.

As the day wears on they pick up speed, racing against the sun to gain as much distance as possible. Neither of them know how much further they have to go, as he long ago lost any sense of where they are in relation to those navigational drawings from what feels like a lifetime ago. But there is a looming sense of  _ just a little further _ that forever hounds him, driving him forward, and he in turn pulls his mate with him. She is stronger than ever, growing faster and more confident with every day, but just as she recovers, so does he.

He forces himself to eat, even when the bad thoughts are hammering at him and he doesn’t want to. He pushes himself hard - further, deeper, faster - every day, and the rewards have begun to show. He’s bigger than he remembers being. He’s always dwarfed his small mate, but now his arms are nearly as thick as one of her pale thighs. It feels good to gain back some of his size. The food they gave him during his capture was just enough to keep him alive and weak. He flourishes in these waters of plenty, gaining muscle and rigidity back in his spines. He is, at long last, beginning to feel like himself again. His light returns, and his mate’s fingers dance in its path.

In contrast and complement, his mate looks less like herself every day. Her hair flows wild through the water, uneven in parts where it has broken off. He has given her more shells to wear, relishing how each colorful piece looks against her skin. It’s a rather garish display by the standards of his tribe, but she likes it, smiling and clapping her hands delightedly with each one, and he truly can’t deny her anything. With shells woven into her hair and hanging from her neck, wrists, ankles, waist, she looks wild. Her fins shimmer in light like a pale rainbow and he uses his light to perfect them - a little length here, more strength there. His continued use of his light has made other, unintended changes. Some of her skin shows a soft, scale like pattern. It is still smooth and soft to his touch, but seems stronger and more resilient to the briny water, which often makes her seem dried out. Her eyes seem wider, as well, and he can sense her tracking movement in the water around them better than before. 

Every day is the same for a long time, and he finds comfort in the routine, pleased by the way his mate seems happier as well. She teaches him how to weave her hair into a cord down her back so that it doesn’t get into her eyes, and he teaches her to use her blunt little claws to clean the scales on his back he can’t easily reach.

Until it changes again.

He wakes on the night of the dark moon when she suddenly wrenches herself from his arms. Alarmed and still half asleep, he gropes for her in the semi-darkness. They’ve sheltered under a dock in a bed of sea-grass, and she is nowhere in reach. Fear beginning to wake him, he swims up out of the grass to search for her, when the tang of blood hits his nose.

Fear becomes panic and he lurches into motion - what has happened? Where is she? Did one of those monsters sneak up and grab her away from him while he was asleep? But before he can do more than flounder a bit, he spots her, just a bit away against one of the beams supporting the dock. Her eyes are focused downward, and he swims over to her, overcome with relief. He grasps her shoulders in his hands, and she flinches in surprise. He is too relieved that she’s safe to notice how she refuses to meet his eyes.

He still scents blood in the water so he looks her over for the source, confused when she squirms in his grasp and tries to use her arms to cover herself from his gaze. She still has her clothing that covers her breasts and her secret flesh, so he’s not sure why she’s trying to shy from him. It only when he notices her arms circle her belly that he catches the slightly different scent of blood that he realizes what’s occurred.

He stills, eyes traitorously flitting down to her groin, and she squeezes her thighs together. When he looks back up at her face, her expression is stubborn but her lip trembles. 

He remembers what this is. He’s had sisters and aunts who each went through this several times a year. It was always an uncomfortable time for the female in question, but he’d never seen one of them react like this. He is somewhat relieved that in this very basic way, his mate is similar to the females he’s known, but at the same time, some things must be different. He knows that land people are often shamed by their bodies, as anyone can see by their insistence on coverings. Perhaps they are shamed by a female’s bleeding as well? It seems very odd to him, to be ashamed of such a natural thing, but he’s given up trying to understand why land people do anything. 

He strokes his hands down her arms in a soothing gesture.  _ Bad?  _ He asks, pointing at her stomach.

Her lip is still trembling when she nods, but the stubborn jut of her chin makes her look like she’s daring him to comment. 

_ I help,  _ he assures her. The look she levels on him is a little insulting, as she clearly doesn’t believe him, but he ignores it. Clearly, no male has ever helped her through this time, which is every other male’s loss and his eternal gain. He decides to focus on his luck - he gets another chance to show her that he will be a good mate for her. 

But then her body seizes and her face crumples as she folds in on herself, knees coming up to her chest and arms tight around her belly. He takes advantage of the moment to sweep her into his arms and return them to their little nest. 

He holds her, back to his chest, and lets her curl up as tight as she needs to. He noses her jaw gently, humming comfort to her as she whimpers softly. He waits until she relaxes a bit before he begins, letting his light unfurl into his palms as slowly strokes her side. 

Incrementally, she begins to relax into his touch, unfolding herself as her eyes flutter closed to let him run his hands along her stomach, waist, and thighs. Each soft pass eases a little of the ache within her. He sings for her as he moves, weaving sounds into the water around them. She can’t understand, he knows, but he still sings about his home for her, about the life he wants for them there, about the life he had before.

He barely remembers his mother, he was so young when she died. But he remembers how beautiful she was - her eyes were dark and her scales iridescent. She was an orphan from a tribe several tributaries over, and his father adored her the moment he saw her. He also remembers how kind she was, the way her hands eased all his childish hurts, the way her thrumming song lulled him into sleep against her breast. He remembers games of chase through the river, swimming as fast as he could to keep up with his older sister until his mother’s strong and assuring arms swooped around him, dragging him back against her even as he play fought against her.

He remembers how her bleeding would come and she would curl up into herself in the family nest, keening softly until his father arrived. He remembers the way her pained song slowly melded with his croons of comfort, until together they sang of joy and  _ together. _

He also remembers that less than a year later, his little sister’s song joined the rest of his family’s. 

He feels his mate’s soft hands cradle his against her skin and he imagines that if she could sing the way he does, she would be singing of  _ together _ with him. She twists in his arms to face him, and he strokes her hair back from her face, pressing soft little kisses to her cheeks and eyes and brow.

_ Thank you,  _ her hands sing to him, in the small space between them. He tries to smile in her fashion, which makes her eyes light up in happiness. 

_ My mate,  _ he hand-sings in return, lulled by her presence and already half asleep. But her eyes are alert, watching him like she’s desperate for something, so he rouses himself again for her sake.  _ Okay? _ He asks her.

_ Yes,  _ she replies. She reaches out and rests her hand against his chest, right over the spot where his heart beats contentedly. Her other hand rests over her own breast bone, where he knows her stubborn, precious little heart beats. He watches her as she slowly brings her hands together, clasping them. Her eyes are expectant, anxious, as she makes a shape with her hand. He doesn’t know this one, though he thinks maybe he’s seen her make it when she’s going too fast. It’s a tough one for him to mimic with the webbing on his hands, but he tries anyway, thumb out and index and small finger up from his hand. She nods, and watches him, waiting for him to figure it out as she repeats the motion of touching both their chests and bringing them together between them.

His heart and hers? He doesn’t understand. He treasures her heart and it’s precious beat, each little thud reassuring him that she’s alive and safe. But the earnest, desperate look in her eyes tells him this is not so simple or small. It’s a big shape, a big song. 

But her heart and his? 

In a flash, he suddenly understands that it isn’t her  _ heart _ and his, it’s her  _ spirit _ and his, coming together as one. The two of them, as a mated pair, and everything between them. It’s such a tiny, elegant shape, to encompass so much. It suddenly means the wellspring of what he feels for her, his need and adoration, and his wonder at her and their shared future. It is everything they are and the promise of what they will be, what they will create. 

She knows he understands, smiling softly. Her eyes seem so full as she makes that shape again, showing it to him. He returns it to her, earnestly, praying she understands, and whatever she sees in his eyes as he does makes her suddenly embrace him. He pulls her to him fully, burying his face against her neck, and breathes her in.

He never know he could feel so much for someone, or how sweetly it could hurt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, let's get back to some fluff! Yay!
> 
> 1\. I'm kinda annoyed at men who think periods are super gross and should happen behind closed doors in a way that doesn't inconveniences them. Like, it's a thing that happens. You cool with people having flatulence? Yeah? Well periods are the same - just a bodily function. There's not a lot that can be done for it, and in a close knit, tribal society, everyone's gonna know when you're on the rag. It doesn't really make sense for a society like that to have big taboos about menstruation, although those taboos do occur in human tribal societies, so there is a precedent for it... but as much as I try to base things in this fic on logic and reasoning I made this choice cause it makes me happy dammit. Also, I figure with all the stress and cold and malnutrition from the early part of the journey, Elisa probably skipped a cycle. Sub-note: the big guy literally has healing hands. Hello, best hot water bottle ever.  
> 2\. Love is a weird concept that doesn't occur the same way across cultural boundaries. In a lot of ways our reality, the way we perceive and interact with the world around us, is ordered by language. Think about it like this - if we didn't have a word for blue, would blue still exist to us? Probably, but not in a notable way. If a culture doesn't have a word for love, they may still experience those feelings, but express and experience them differently. Also, Elisa is definitely doing the "I love you" sign. Kinda hard for a guy with webbed hands, but he's not gonna be dissuaded by something so trivial.  
> 3\. Geographically, we are well into the Mexican shoreline. The pace is a bit unrealistic, but hey, he's a fish man with magic hands that change's his girlfriend's body. Anyway, over the next few chapters, we'll be moving past Mexico and into the more southern Central American countries. This fic is almost 2/3's done. 
> 
> Cheers, wonderful people. Your comments and thoughts make my day when you share them, and I adore hearing from you. Have an awesome week, and I will see you all in three days.


	13. Sirena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut! Smut! You have been warned! Proceed with caution. Or, you know, tear through cause you know you like it.

They make good progress as they travel. At least, he supposes they do. It feels like they do. He’s not sure anymore. He thinks perhaps they are lost, that they’ve gone too far or been turned around somehow. But he doesn’t know, and he can’t risk changing direction. There are too many dangers, monsters lurking in the shadows and land people, always more land people. They dive into the waters in these new places, searching for fish and shellfish for their own meals, and avoiding them is a haphazard, messy business that has, on several occasions, nearly gotten one of them bitten or otherwise injured. 

But he watches them, and he learns from them what is safe to eat and what is not. His mate watches them too, her wide eyes taking in their forms with a greediness that rouses jealousy and possessiveness in him. He works to push that down. Of course she misses her own kind. It would be unfair to expect her to turn away from them completely. But still, he wants her eyes on him alone, no matter how unfair that is of him.

They pass through these strange, clear waters, sleeping in caves and alcoves and sunken boats. They scatter schools of fish and race pods of dolphins. When male dolphins get too close, curious about his mate, he hisses and growls and chases them off, even though his mate seems to find the annoying creatures endearing, inviting the calves close to her. The juveniles quickly get too rough for her and he has to chase them away too. 

He chases her through winding structures of living rock, color and life bursting all around them. These are waters of plenty, and if the brine didn’t make her skin and hair dry and if there were less land people, he might be inclined to settle here and build a place for them. But he feels the subtle pull of home more strongly than ever, like a spirit’s hand on his bones, pulling him ever onward. And in a humbling display of trust, his mate follows him, even as they both marvel at the riot of life around them.

Perhaps, someday, they can return. Perhaps he will lead her and their sons and daughters back here one day, to explore and taste and play. 

They settle one night under an overhang of rocks on a bit of shore. It’s abandoned, too rocky for land people, and after he’s made a space of soft sand and confirmed that no dangers lurk nearby, his mate seems happy for the chance to rest on land. She tries to tame her hair and he helps, but it’s too brittle with brine and breaks off in their fingers. She heaves a great sigh and offers him a soft, peaceful smile. He nuzzles her in return.

_ I hunt. Wait here? _ He asks, and she nods, absently adjusting the shells around her neck. She hand-sings their special shape, the one that means how much she feels for him, and his song suddenly twists into a series of elated chirps and trills, to his embarrassment. She hears and smiles widely, covering her mouth with her hands while he tries to control his song. He wonders if the sight of her hand-songs declaring her affection for him will always make his blood rush through his gills like a juvenile who’s just discovered how pretty females are. She makes him feel at once young and foolish, but strong and powerful at the same time, and she does it all in the space of one of her flashing smiles. 

He hunts quickly, finding succulent shellfish that his mate prefers easily. There are many, and he gathers only the biggest, healthiest looking ones before returning. 

He finds her waiting for him by starlight, eyes scanning the water. Looking for him, he assumes, his spirit twisting in his chest. She grows lovelier and more dear every time he looks at her, and he looks at her often. He lurks in the dark of the water, watching her, simply because he finds enjoyment in it, and because he secretly enjoys the fact that his eyes are stronger at night than hers. She grows so much stronger and capable all the time, and deep in his spirit he likes that she needs him still. 

But watching her is not nearly as enjoyable as being with her, so he gives up his game quickly, swimming to join her on the sand. She claps her hands in delight at his successful hunt, though he can hardly call it a hunt when it was as easy as collecting stones. He doesn’t really try to correct her, though. 

He sets his haul to the side and reaches for her, waiting for her to reach for him in turn before he drags her to him, settling back on his haunches to pull her into his lap. She wriggles playfully in his grip, and he growls and nips at her ear, knowing she can sense his mirth. They enjoy their teasing games, but he has other endeavors in mind now. 

He can feel her upturned lips against his brow as he nuzzles into her neck, taking her scent into himself. She smells different now, briny and earthy and female but also faintly of him, and  _ oh, _ that faint whisper of himself does things to him, makes his gut clench in the most wonderful way. He presses soft kisses to the skin of her throat, feeling how thin and delicate her skin is, tasting her little pulse with his tongue. He relishes the soft gasp she gives up, the way her squirming on his lap turns abruptly from playful to needful.

He pull her upper coverings out of the way to palm a breast as she grounds down against his slit, sending jolts of pleasure arching up through his hips. The pressure is growing quickly, and to draw things along further, he shifts to lay her down on the sand. Her hands find his ridges, dancing across the sensitive, new skin there and driving him wild, but he quickly shifts out of her grasp to lay between her legs and pull her lower clothing down. 

She sucks in a deep breath and lifts her hips to him, like an offering. Her hands shake as she uses them to silently sing  _ Please…  _ He can deny her nothing.

Her thighs spread around him like an invitation that he’s helpless to decline, and her sweet, female scent draws him in. She smells better than usual, he thinks, adding that to the ever-growing list he keeps in his mind called Why He’s The Luckiest Male Alive. He parts her with his tongue and delves deep, drinking from the spring of her need. Her hips jerk and he uses is hands to keep her steady, licking and probing with his tongue before gently pulling her little nub between his lips. He drinks in her panting breaths, her trembling thighs, before he pulls back down and thrusts his tongue deep into her soft, heated sheath. His length slips free of his slit, throbbing in yearning for the tight warmth that his tongue enjoys.

He moves back and forth, tormenting her with only so much pleasure, until her little hands find his ridges and yank impatiently. He chuffs darkly against her before carefully sliding a finger into her and lapping at her nub with the flat of his tongue. She thrashes, exactly as he knew she would, and he watches with no small amount of pride as she arches, gasping, and tenses before falling back to the sand.

He rolls her to her side and lays behind her, stroking her belly and thighs as she comes down from her bliss. When she presses back, working her hindquarters against his length in a way that threatens to unravel his spirit from his body, he lifts one of her legs up and works himself into her from below and behind. It is tight, nearly to rob him of his senses immediately, but it is so wonderfully close to her. His senses are full of her - the smell of her hair right under his nose, the sight of her wonderful mouth parting in pleasure, the wet sound of her need on his length as he feeds bit after bit into her body, her lingering taste on his tongue, and the feel of her against him, all around him, warm and twitching and writhing.

He tries to start slow, thrusting languidly, but as ever, his mate has other ideas. She grinds down on his length and his song stutters out into stunned whistles, his vision blanking. He hooks an arm under her leg, hiking it up further to deny her leverage to do that again, pinning her more effectively.

Her hands scrabble against the sand as she pants and he drives himself into her. It is, as always,  _ so much _ but all at once  _ not enough  _  and he needs more. His body moves on its own to take it, thrusting up into her at a demanding, punishing pace, while his mind gets lost to the sound of his scales slapping against her skin, tasting the brine and sweat on the back of her neck. He cups her throat gently in one hand, helpless to the frantic rhythm of her heart, and his other hand reaches down to stroke her little pearl until-

She  _ clenches _ and he forgets to breathe, and then he’s  _ spilling  _ into her, lost to the demands of her body, praying that he is never found again.

He pulls her against himself as she trembles and pants, and quiet falls between them, need sated. Time passes, and his spirit, body, and mind are at peace. 

Until the sound of someone gasping behind him invades his awareness, making him roll away from her to his feet to face whatever threat appears.

A juvenile land female is mere paces away from them, clearly having stopped in her steps after spotting them seconds ago, staring with eyes impossibly wide and mouth agape. In terror, perhaps? She should be terrified. He hisses, baring his fangs, furious with himself - he let himself get too distracted, let potential danger get far too close to his vulnerable mate-

His mate’s pale hand closes on his wrist, pulling him away, and he glances to her. Her eyes are wide and worried, glancing between him and the juvenile female, and he is suddenly aware that he’s hissing and baring his fangs at little more than a  _ child.  _ He is vaguely shamed, but unable to truly feel guilt for protecting what he treasures most. 

His mate slips into the water near-silently, vanishing like moonlight into shadow, and he follows her, retreating slowly with a final threatening look at the interloper, promising pain with his eyes should she dare try to follow.

Just as he submerges, he hears the juvenile whisper:

_ “ Una sirena…” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I posting at nearly 3 am my time? Poor life choices, that's why. But I'm here, so I brought a chapter with me. Just for you guys, cause you're awesome and I love you. 
> 
> 1\. Just to be clear, the human girl did not perv on Elisa and our boy banging. She arrived post-coitus, well into afterglow snuggle time. I think it was clear in there, just making sure.  
> 2\. Love changes. It's dynamic, alive. It's a thing that grows into the cracks and spaces between people, and because it grows between and isn't static, it never grows the same way twice. It grows when you nurture it, and yeah, we've all heard that one before, but it's true. It grows like grape vines, the ones meant for wine, that are kinda gnarly and haggard looking. But the thing about those vines is, the more the vine struggles to stay alive against drought and poor soil and lack of light, the better the wine, and love is kinda like that. Pain and struggle and heartache give it depth and body and richness it would otherwise lack. It flourishes when we feed and care for it, but the hard times are what really makes it special. And the way these two love each other is growing and changing, becoming stronger for what they've been through. And the way they express that love will change with them.  
> 3\. The girl. It's kinda hard to explain why she's there right now, but she serves a purpose. But in the meantime, here's a thought I had - she went down the shore for who knows what reason, and she saw _una sirena_ , a mermaid. And a scary monster fish man, but hey, as a teenage girl I'm gonna fixate on the mermaid. She tells the story, and no one believes her, not really. But she repeats the story, and others repeat it too. "Hey, did you hear what Sofia says she saw on the beach?" and it gets repeated and repeated and it sort of becomes an urban legend. And it lives on, long after Elisa and the big guy are gone. The memory of them lingers. I don't know why, but I like that thought.
> 
> Wonderful readers, thank you again for all your amazing comments, thoughts, questions, and of course those awesome kudos. I'm spoiled for support and I have you guys to thank. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and I will see you in three days!


	14. Stop

Something is wrong, but he isn’t sure what.

It gnaws at him, like a tiny lamprey in his gut, forever worrying at his stomach. Sometimes the feeling is so visceral, he truly thinks something is in him. But there’s no blood or weight loss, and he continues to gain back muscle and strength. It is in his mind, this gnawing, but that doesn’t make it feel less real. 

It hounds him. He loses sleep over it, hovering near his mate while she rests fitfully, curled so tightly her body seems like a clenched fist. He tries to soothe her, sings calming songs and strokes her back gently, and sometimes she relaxes, but more and more she remains tense, her perfect pale face scrunched in worry, even as she sleeps. 

When she wakes, he urges her onward, but his pace and urgency tire her. Her lethargy worries him. He knows he’s pushed her hard for many days, and she is so much smaller than him… she was getting stronger, he’d thought she’d be able to match him, but clearly, he was wrong. He tries to slow himself down, but the gnawing forces him to move. Even when they stop, he swims restlessly until his mate relents and they can move onward.

He thinks maybe she’s sick, or not eating well enough. She eats every night and morning when he hunts, but then, what does he know about what land people eat? Perhaps he is not providing the right food for her? He tries different things, even risks being spotted to spy on land people to see what they eat. They eat a great many things, most of which he can’t identify, and even less that he can get. He finds hard round fruits to crack open for her, which at first she drinks nectar from and eats of with delight, but days later she refuses them. He manages to steal other things, round fruits colored like sunset and oblong ones with strange, rubbery skin. She eats them, lets him try them with her in good humor (he likes the orange one, though it is tart enough to make him shake his head, but the oblong yellow ones feel strange in his mouth). But they do not seem to help her.

But then, he isn’t sure that there is anything that needs help. Perhaps it’s him, and his ever-present gnawing. Perhaps what he perceives as unusual lethargy is just normal tiredness from a female who has journeyed an incredible distance being pushed ever farther by her male.

But he can’t help the feeling - just a little farther, a little longer. There’s a tenseness in him, something coiled tight and ready to spring, like that breathless moment after a long hunt just before the strike. It has been more days than he can count but still he is hounded by this sense, this gnawing. 

Something is wrong, he can  _ feel  _ it, but somehow, he knows, if he can just get a little  _ further _ , it will be better.

And his silent mate follows him onward, through days and nights, until one morning at dawn, she refuses to wake.

He feels that familiar stab of panic - in his mind he can see her, hanging limp in the dark water, hair floating like a halo around her head, still and taut and cold like  _ death  _ and he can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t even spare a thought to  _ pray _ \- but she rouses under his gentle nuzzles, just enough to roll to her other side and curl into herself, very effectively shutting him out. He chases after her, scooting over to curl around her and pull her close. She snuggles back into his embrace, but when he nuzzles her again to wake her, she ducks her head with an indignant huff. 

He switches tactics, swimming over her to her front and nipping playfully at her hair, but she swats him away and burrows deeper into the sand in the little underwater cave they’d found. Puzzled, he tries again, but this time she lifts her head and levels a glare on him that would stop an anaconda cold before returning to her curled position. Stunned and confused, he looks her over, searching for some sign of why she won’t rouse. 

She’s never been very good at rousing, his lovely mate. She often grumps and resists him when it’s time to wake. But she’s never outright refused to do so, and never has she given him a look like that, in any circumstance. He’s pretty sure she’d promised him death with her eyes if he tries to wake her again.

Again he worries. Is she overtired? Sick? Injured in some way? Not for the first time, he wonders what in the world he’s gotten into with her. It’s overwhelming, the sheer amount of what he just doesn’t know about her and her people. Perhaps she has some basic need he’s not seeing to. She hasn’t complained, but she generally doesn’t, so he can’t be sure. 

He doesn’t know what else to do, so he swims to the surface, looking for activity on the shore. The land people are beginning their day, with their boats and their tools and all the strange things they do. But for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, he suddenly realizes that he  _ understands  _ their songs. 

He  _ understands  _ them. The land people. The only land people he’s really understood like this were the ones that lived along his home river. If these land people use the same songs then they must be of similar tribes. He’s close, he realizes. Close to home.

_ Home. _

There is no way to even comprehend what he feels. His spirit is a cacophony of emotions and thoughts, racing around like piranhas in a frenzy. He is frozen at the surface, staring, listening, overwhelmed by the relief and the longing. He’d always thought of the land people along his home river as vaguely annoying, burdensome neighbors that made life more difficult far more often than they helped. The sound of their songs had always been cause to leave the area. But now, he can barely remember hearing anything half so sweet as their short, guttural,  _ familiar  _ sounds. 

He’d learned Strickland’s songs - at least, enough of them that he’d understood he’s mate’s tribe passingly well. And during their journey along the shore, he’d heard many different songs from the land people they’d passed. But he knows these songs better, follows their meaning easily. They speak of work, hunting and building and making, and they speak of families, mates and offspring and relatives.

Suddenly, movement comes back to him, and he dives in a rush. He uses his claws to haul himself into the cave where his mate rests as fast as he can, stirring up sand in his approach. His mate senses him coming, and is already giving him a baleful look when he comes to a stop before her.

_ E-L-I-S-A, my mate-  _ he shows her the sign for their bond, and her glare softens some, but not fully.  _ They sing same as home,  _ he tries to sing to her, hoping he’s gotten the shapes right. Judging by the confused look she gives him, he doesn’t think he did, so he tries again.  _ Home, my mate. Close. I know their songs.  _

_ Your home?  _ She asks. He notices the faintest tremble of her hands as she does.

_ Close. We go. You, me, together,  _ he grasps her hands in his, pulling her gently along. He is more gratified than he can express that she follows him, even without their morning meal, as he chases a ghost of a feel further along the shore, even if she does come so much more slowly.

Even with her swimming slowed they make good speed. And with his hope renewed by the discovery of familiar land songs, he finds more patience with his mate, reminding himself that she has been through as much as he has, and has more still to endure. She counts the days that pass from that first morning of familiarity, teaching him the way she counts as she does. His people do not count as she does, with precision, a song for every amount, and a precise answer for any two amounts put together or taken one from another. His people sing in groups, with songs for a few, and some, and more, and many. And by his reckoning, some days become more, and approach many, and his mate counts off all her fingers and starts over, before he scents his river.

He’d know it anywhere. He can smell the silt and the plants and fish and even the land people, the particular way they all come together. He can see the ruddy color of his home waters bleeding into the briny big water, and when he runs his hand through the color it feels familiar. Something in his spirit unclenches. He has done it. He has done something he believes no one has done before, and he has done it with his mate. He feels powerful, but also so very tired. It will be a long, difficult swim up river, but the end is in sight. Once they begin up the river, it will be child’s play to navigate to his home tributary.

_ Home,  _ he tells his mate, pointing to the delta. She follows his hand, eyes widening. So many emotions fly over her face, and he marvels at how easy it is to read them now. Her face, once so alien and strange, has become so very dear to him. He thinks that if he were to see his own reflection he would see a stranger, but she is more familiar to him than the scent of his home river.

Her hands lift, as though to sing to him, but they hang in the water, twitching but never forming shapes. He watches fear skitter across her eyes, worry and pain and more fear, then hope and love and strength, but then fear again.

She finally makes the shape of her name for him. He watches steadily, nodding in her way to let her know he is watching, he is listening.  _ Big thing to sing,  _ she tells him slowly. Again, he notices her hands are shaking. He’s notices that more and more lately. She sings their bond to him and he returns it, pleased and confused. Her square, blunt teeth worry at her bottom lip, and her hands twist in front of her anxiously, and he can’t imagine what could be so important, so  _ big  _ that she would be this nervous.

_ No worry,  _ he assures her, reaching out to grab her hands in his own. She smiles briefly, squeezing his hands before freeing hers. She grabs one of his wrists, and guides his hand to her lower stomach. Her belly, always so soft and supple, is tight under his hand, with a gentle curve he hasn’t noticed until now. Curious, he watches her press his hand there, then glances up to her face for some sign or guidance. He finds her eyes searching his own face, teeth on her lip again.

And then, like magic, his light flickers just the smallest bit, tracing down his arm and into his palm. He feels, or senses, something answer from within.

His eyes jerk back to her face in astonishment.

_ Our child,  _ she hand-sings slowly. 

The world, time, all that is simply  _ stops. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo. Okay, beautiful, incredible, lovely readers who brighten my day with your lovely comments and kudos, here we go.
> 
> 1\. Gonna save the major part of "wtf how is she preggo?!" for the next chapter, but this is gonna be Part 1 of How Elisa Got Knocked Up, and trust me, it's relevant. Anyway! So remember way back when, where we talked about Carl Jung's collective unconscious? Yeah, so, brief overview of that. Jung basically believed that there a sort of genetic memory inherent in all species, but that for us, it's deeper and richer. So this would explain the instinctive reaction to things like snakes, but also the instinctive reaction to certain archetypes like the Great Mother or the World Tree. Now, the theory is not without its flaws (kinda European-centric for one), but even in flawed theories you can find a kernel of truth. So bringing it back to the big guy and why this is relevant to Elisa's being pregnant, here's my theory: Dr. Bob was wrong. I know that's kinda ballsy to say as a fan to the one credible scientific character in the movie, but I have reasons, and here they are.  
> a. Dr. Bob's entire thinking was based on the assumption that the big guy's species evolved _entirely separate_ from humans. That's not so far a stretch. The exact quote, though, goes "the apex of a completely separate evolution" or something like that. So logically, I have to assume he's saying that way back when, probably millions of years ago, some amphibian began an evolutionary journey that led to becoming an amphibious fish man. There are problems with this theory, and the biggest one is that in what world is bipedalism the apex of an amphibious evolution? Bipedalism was an evolution that made sense for our ancestors because they needed to move quickly from one tree to the next, and doing it on two legs gave them a greater line of sight for predators and two free hands for tools. From there, history. Literally. Anyway, I don't see how bipedalism is the apex of our own evolution (maybe like, I dunno, our _brain_?) and it doesn't make sense for an amphibian evolving in a river system to develop that way. Which begs the question, what does make sense? Cause we have a bipedal amphibian with gills. There are South American amphibians with gills, which I do think the Asset's design was meant to call back to, but for that little creature to develop bipedally???  
>  b. What _does_ make sense is that the evolutionary source material was not amphibious. So here's where things get tricky. Modern scientists place the bipedalism evolutionary branch as early as seven but more likely around six million years ago. Another important thing to realize is that the evolutionary branch that became modern humans has a ridiculously low amount of genetic variation, because at a certain point a long while back, we nearly went extinct, and being down to less that 40,000 breeding individuals will do that. So I'm thinking this - a cataclysmic volcanic event occurs (cause that's what we think it was, the Toba super eruptions half way around the world, but very interesting theories about the extremely volatile nature of where we evolved lending to our tenacity and adaptability anyway I'll shut up sorry) and both during the event and in the fallout, early hominid populations are decimated. However, two distinct and separated groups survive. Now, we know our ancestors sheltered near a beach. What if this hypothetical second group sheltered in the water? Perhaps land conditions were completely inhospitable and they went into the ocean. And then just... didn't come out. In such small groups mutations occur obscenely fast, especially if they improve survival as radically as fins would. Now, this is all conjecture of course. The actual event I'm basing this theory on occurred roughly 75,000 years ago, which is by all counts no where near long enough for hominids to evolve gills. I'm positing though that perhaps something similar occurred millions of years ago, _before_ the evolution of modern humans but _after_ the evolution of bipedalism in early hominids.  
>  c. Those early hominids that took to the sea migrated in search of better waters to live in. Would have been possible, considering the sea would be smaller and warmer, leading to the development of a tolerance for salinity in water that just didn't breed out when the species settled in a fresh water river. From there, things continued on till we get the big guy as he is. It's shaky but hey, it's what I got.  
> d. TL:DR: Big guy's species shares ancestral roots with humans, crossed the sea, and also I'm a huge evolution nerd.  
> 2\. Fish people don't do math. Cause they don't build. Who builds in a river that floods for half the year? Doesn't make sense. So numbers are kinda hazy for them.
> 
> More on all this stuff next chapter. Let me know your thoughts. Or tell me to shut the hell up cause I legit ran out of characters. Cheers!


	15. The Hard Part

If there are songs for this, he doesn’t know them.

He doesn’t know anything anymore. He’d hoped. Gods and spirits alike, how he’d hoped and prayed. He’d believed they were not too different, even when she sang to him of her worry that they were. He’d imagined what it would be like, what their offspring would look like. He’d wanted that future for them so badly it hurt.

But now, in this singular moment unlike any that have preceded it, cupping the absurdly delicate flesh of his mate’s soft belly in his hand, he suddenly knows that the two of them have not only done the impossible once, they’ve done it  _ twice.  _ Three times, perhaps, if the fact that they met and mated at all counted.

They found each other. They’ve come so far. 

They’ve made  _ life. _

And spirits help him, the first thing he feels is complete  _ terror. _

The world, which was big and full of danger before, is suddenly nothing but life-threatening horror in his mind. Spirits, he is such a fool. He should never have mated her out in the open big water like this. Hasn’t he seen first hand what monsters lurk just beyond sight here? With land people everywhere and their awful boats and foul refuse - even that makes his poor mate choke, what untold evil has it done to their unborn child? Gods and spirits, just the day before they passed jagged chunks of metal sticking up from the sand, if a strong current had overtaken her - she is so delicate and fine and precious and now she’s  _ carrying their child- _

He’s going to be a father.

He’s made life. He’s found a female to adore, a beautiful, wonderful, kind, intelligent female with a stubborn jaw and bright eyes and moon-skin who sings silent songs with her hands and has delicate finger tips that trace his scales in wonder, and against all odds this incredible creature has seen him and found something worth having, and he’s mated her and they’ve made  _ life. _

Something that is part of him and part of her grows inside her now.

Her belly, flat and soft before, is taut and softly curved now. He can cup her flesh in his hand. 

His child is inside her.  _ Their  _ child is inside her, just on the other side of skin and muscle. 

So  _ little  _ protects his offspring! So little protects his mate! He must be more careful, must take better care-

Soft hands cup his face, pulling his gaze up from where it locked on where his hand cups her belly and snapping him out of the swirl of his thoughts. Her eyes are shimmering and worried, her lips red from the way her teeth worry at it. Guilt roils in him. He’s been off in his own head, and she’s been here, waiting for him to react.

But he doesn’t know how to react. 

He’s happy. Happy is too small a song for it, really. He feels paralyzed with wonder. Awestruck. He can’t get far enough past the fact that his mate is carrying their  _ child  _ to really feel much more than that. But he’s also terrified. So many threats, even when it was just the two of them, but now it’s the  _ three  _ of them, and his mate is more vulnerable than ever in this state-

A terrible thought occurs to him - she’s been lethargic  _ because  _ she’s carrying, he realizes. That makes sense, he supposes. He can’t imagine how making a whole person wouldn’t be a lot of work, and he vaguely remembers his mother being tired while carrying his little sister. But she’s had trouble keeping pace along the shore, swimming upriver will be nearly impossible-

And his mate is still waiting for him to react.

She’s begun to pull back, blinking rapidly. She thinks her news is unwelcome, he realizes, and he grabs her shoulders and crushes her to his chest, desperate for as much contact as he can get. She hestiates in his arms, squirming, before her arms wrap around his chest and her little nails dig into his scales along his back. Her breath comes in a great shudder, and tension begins to bleed from her shoulders.

And then, his song burst out of him. He hasn’t realized he’s been silent. But sounds burst out of him, joyous chirps and anxious trills, protective growls and loving purrs. There is so much spilling out of his spirit and sound is the only place for it all to go. 

He registers her squirming in his grip and he releases her in a rush, hands flying to her hips to smooth over her stomach, peering anxiously at her face to make sure he hasn’t hurt her - hurt  _ them. _

_ I okay,  _ she tells him, before one corner of her lips quirks up in a funny half of a smile that he instantly adores as much as he adores her.  _ We okay,  _ she corrects herself and then gives him a look as he trills in anxious happiness. He tries to tamp down the volume for her sake. He flounders for something to sing her.  _ You happy? Our child good?  _ She asks, and has to take a moment to remember her songs.

_ Yes! Yes yes yes yes,  _ he hand-sings to her, repeating the song emphatically and wishing to gods and spirits alike he had a better way to communicate to her that he was more than happy, he was ecstatic, that their child would be the most adored in all the river. 

_ I worry,  _ she sings slowly, and even as he’s trying to formulate coherent thought to reply, she continues.  _ I worry, your home, me, our child, too different. Different from you and your-  _ she makes a shape he doesn’t know, but he assumes she means tribe. Maybe  _ they not want us. _

His hands fly up and his song stutters in his coming protest, but he hesitates. He will not lie to her, not about anything. He’s sworn to himself to never take her choice from her in anyway, and lying would do just that. And no matter how much he wants to deny it to her, he… can’t.

It’s possible. When his female tribe members take mates and those mates join their tribe, it usually goes fine. But sometimes the mate comes from a competing tribe, or a tribe that has been antagonistic. It is not always fine, then. Sometimes there are fights, and sometimes the tribe is cold to the newcomer. He is suddenly shamed to remember mimicking his cousins in refusing to welcome another cousin’s mate from another tribe. 

Now his mate will be the outsider, the stranger in strange waters. So much has changed. She took such care of him, made sure he felt as comfortable as possible. She is afraid that she will not be accepted, that the child she carries, the child they’ve made, will not be accepted. That she and the child will always be different. Always  _ other. _

And the idea that she has that fear, and has reason to have that fear,  _ infuriates  _ him. 

She is the finest female in the world. She is strong and caring and brave. She has come so far and has trusted him in doing so to keep her safe and bring her someplace where they can make a home. She will be the best mother, he knows, because she will love and protect their child as fiercely as she has him. She deserves more than he can ever give her, and she certainly deserves to be welcomed among his tribe in her position of honor as his mate and the mother of his child. 

But he can’t guarantee that it will be so.

The only thing he knows for certain, the only thing he can guarantee, is that regardless of what happens with his tribe, he will protect her, honor her, adore her as she deserves, and he believes in his spirit that his father and sisters will as well. If they do not, he will simply make them see. The rest of the tribe will see too, and if they don’t, they do not matter.

But how to tell her that? Her eyes search his face, her lips pressed into a thin line. Some of her hair has escaped its cord, floating around her face like whispery tendrils. He reaches out to smooth it back into place and she leans into his touch.

_ No worry. I protect,  _ he hand-sings to her, and rushes on even as her lips press tighter together and her shoulders stiffen in tensions.  _ They see you different. They see you my mate. Different is small. Mate is big. _

She meets his gaze, searching his eyes for something with a desperation he hasn’t seen on her face since they were in her land dwelling and his strength was fading. Her small hand cups her belly, a protective gesture that nurtures something in his spirit. Yes, she will be a fierce, adoring mother. He is glad she chose him as her mate. He is honored. He adores her so much, and already the tiny, precious life she carries. She will be fierce, but he will rain death on those that seek to harm her or the child within her.

_ I worry,  _ her hands seem to whisper into the water between them, and her eyes cast downwards.  _ I worry,  _ she repeats, and he grasps her hands in his owns.

He doesn’t bother telling her not to worry because how can she not worry? He worried endlessly inside Strickland’s cage. It is not the same, he knows, but he understands all the same. Instead, he shows her the shape for their bond, and she presses herself close to him. He gathers her still closer, feeling small and overwhelmed. One precious heartbeat to safeguard by himself was harrowing enough, but two? 

No matter how worried she is, he has to get her upriver, to the safety of his tribe. His father will know what to do, and his elder sister will guard her tirelessly. He just has to get her there.

And looking at the mouth of the delta, clogged with boats and surrounded on all sides by loud land people with their machines and beasts, knowing that further upriver caiman and jaguars and anaconda lay in wait, he realizes once more what a fool he is. Child’s play, indeed.

The big water was not the hard part. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so that all happened. This chapter was a bit slap-dash, I'm sorry to say. I usually have these done a day in advance at least so I have time to comb over and edit, but I had a medical thing this week that was a lot more _painful_ than advertised so I've been mostly focused on holding very still and not angering my insides. So if this one feels a little less polished, I am sorry, I'll do better on the next one. But! Last chapter you guys really blew me away with so many wonderful comments and kudos! Thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts, I can't tell you what it means to me. So! Onward and upward!
> 
> 1\. Okay, part two of How Elisa Got Knocked Up. Real quick recap - I'm a fan of the _homo piscis_ theory (thanks to amh0802 for turning me onto that diagram, I got my evolutionary/biology jollies off real good on that), and have theorized that the big guy and Elisa share a common evolutionary ancestor, and that the big guys ancestors migrated through the ocean, resulting in genetic memory that gives him good navigation skills, instinctive reactions to unfamiliar predators, and keen sense for home. It explains how in the world he's bipedal cause that bothered me big time in the movie, and it also provides a plausible basis for yay there are gonna be babies! And that was a big thing for me. During the planning stages of this fic, there was not gonna be a baby. I have an issue with things I can't logically explain with at least something resembling science that at least works within the established physics of the world. I am allergic to simply saying "cause magic" and when I'm forced to I feel personally wronged. So I couldn't come up with a way for them to have a baby without saying "cause magic" and therefore, it wasn't happening. Until... I remembered ligers. Yup. Ligers. So tigers and lions are really nothing alike, phenotypically, anyway. But they do share evolutionary ancestors and have enough common genetic material between them to breed. Same with other hybrids - wolves and some dogs, horses and donkeys, the list goes on. So I immediately started wondering what non phenotypical traits Elisa and our boy shared, and was surprised when I started coming up with a pretty long list which included but was not limited to bipedalism, opposable thumbs, lungs, general muscle structure, sexual dimorphism consistent between the two species, compatible sexual organs, obvious developed frontal lobes, sight based sensory array... the list went on. And the list was consistent with established early hominid traits. Wasn't a far jump from there. And if they have common ancestry, then it is possible for them to conceive viable offspring. Don't break out the parades just yet though. There are a laundry list of possible problems with a hybrid offspring, number one of which is that the fetus is not viable. The second is both a problem and a boon - it's call hybrid vitality, which is when a hybrid offspring takes the best traits of both parents and melds them, often growing bigger, smarter, stronger and faster. This can be problematic when the maternal female is diametrically smaller than the paternal male. We'll explore how that plays a part at a later date.  
>  2\. It is one thing to charge into the unknown following someone you love when it's just you. But when there's an innocent life in the mix, things change. Elisa is totally justified in her nervousness. She's risking more than just herself now, and that's a big scary thing.  
> 3\. She was counting off days from when she expected her period, if that wasn't obvious in the last chapter. She's clocking in at approximately nine weeks. It's still very early.  
> 4\. Our guys reaction is based on mine. I was a pretty happy go lucky person pre kids. I was an adrenaline junkie and a risk taker. But when I saw that little pink positive sign on that stupid stick, everything changed in a split second. Suddenly the world wasn't fun experiences waiting to be had. Suddenly it was full of strangers and germs and sharp objects and undercooked meats and scary words like preeclampsia and breach and gestational diabetes. Suddenly there was this tiny little heartbeat and it was the most beautiful sound in a world full of terror. Everything changes when you find out you've created something beyond yourself. You're happy and terrified and in love and in pain and nothing is like it was. It's a lot to adjust to when, like the big guy, so much has already changed. It's a process. 
> 
> I hope you guys have enjoyed this chapter. It meant a lot to me to write it. Let me know what you think.


	16. Stone-Brains

He has no songs for being in his home river at last. The water is familiar, comforting. Even the silt seems to soothe something deep in his spirit. Every breath he draws through his gills gives him strength and joy. 

But no matter how much comfort he draws, he would be blind not to see how harrowing the river is for his mate. 

 

The delta was the hardest. The water was deep to hide from land people, but both he and his mate choked on it as it was full of foul toxins. Even deep, away from the land people’s machines and debris, no matter how much water he drew into his gills, he could not get enough breath. He feared for his small mate, fruitlessly gasping next to him, and the precious life she carried within her. They had to stay near the surface, sneaking little breaths from the air when they could while dodging land people on their boats. It was terrifying - each passing vessel with it’s blade like propellers could kill his mate with her soft, vulnerable skin. 

He was limp with relief when they passed the delta. The stayed closer to the bottom of the river to avoid passing vessels, and drawing breath that deep grew massively easier. But the silt-filled waters were dark so far down, and it was quickly apparent that in the dark his mate was essentially blind. He’d known her vision in darkness was not good, but it had improved as he’d used his light on her, and he’d never assumed it was that bad. But the first time he darts ahead to clear a school of fish from her path and turns to find her grasping blindly for him in the water, he realizes the depth of the problem. And then, what he’d seen as a difficult journey becomes a massive undertaking because he can’t leave her side.

She needs to hold on to him constantly, and not only to comfort herself in what, to her, must seem like oppressive darkness. Without him to guide her, she can quickly lose her way and bump into stones or sunken trees… or worse, aggressive fish, or a strong current that could whisk her away. And, he discovers to his dismay, unless they are near the surface in daylight, she cannot see his hand songs. He’d expected traveling up the river would be hard for her, but he’d never imagined how much it would isolate her, even from him.

At the end of the first day, when he finds a little pool to rest in, she sobs in his arms, her whole body shuddering with the force of her pain. It’s too dark for her to see, but he tries anyway to hand-sing to comfort her, but when that fails he resorts to crooning in the way that comes naturally to him. He massages her soft legs and arms, sing his praise of her strength and resilience until she falls into a shuddering, fitful sleep in his arms.

The second day is not better, and neither are the days that follow.

The current is a brutal battle. Some days they barely make any distance. Some days he has to pull them along by clawing along the bottom of the river. More than once, his mate loses the fight and is swept away, tossed against rocks and debris while he chases after her in a panic. Horrible dark bruises form on her moon-skin that he can’t stand and instantly heals with his light, regardless of how much they might need it later.

Besides, for all her trouble, his mate  _ does _ look healthier. Her skin and hair are softer, some of the angry red marks on her skin from the big water already fading. And if she is doing better, he is flourishing. He is back where the gods and spirits meant for him to be. It feels good to push against the current, to feel the constant direction of the water dragging against his scales. He can hunt easily. And though he’s not in his home tributary, he knows he will be soon, and that gives him strength. 

But having to help his mate so much slows their pace, and what he’d initially thought would be easy and fast takes days and days. Most nights, his mate is so stressed and tired she cries. Sometimes she hand-sings in the water, blindly, and her songs make his clench.

_ I hurt bad,  _ she sings, lips trembling. She sings his name over and over again, and even when he embraces and strokes her, she keeps going. She pleads with him,  _ we stop now? I need stop. _ But he can so rarely give her what she needs. 

He wishes to the gods and spirits alike that he could make this easier for her. He hates to see her suffer. She should be safe and comfortable, tucked safely in the nest he built for her, surrounded on all sides by his tribe while she rests and prepares for their coming child. But instead, he must drag her through this river, and he has never once felt anger towards the river, until now. She is blinded and lost and he can’t even sing to her in her manner to give her comfort. 

He finds that he can put her hands on his and show her some hand-songs that way, and he uses this to sing of how he feels for her, and she gives hims small shaky smiles when he does.

They pass huge tribes of land people, gathered and living their loud, strange lives along the river, but as days pass and grow to many behind them, the land people become few and fewer. The water grows clearer, but still silty and still hard for his mate to see through. The current comes and goes, sometimes powerful and sometimes barely noticeable. 

The pass river otters, which make his mate smile. When there are no land people, they surface and he brings her lovely flowers and hand-sings to her about everything he can until his hands hurt, but the way she watches hungrily for his songs urges him on. Caimans eye them until he rumbles a threat into the water that chases the smaller ones off. Rains fall hard at least once a day, but deep in the water, it’s a dull roar that seems to comfort his mate. 

She sleeps in his arms every night, clinging to him, and he grips her close, protectively cupping her growing belly.

One night, as she rests, he feels a flutter beneath her skin, and spends the rest of his night in sleepless wonder. He felt their child. It will be strong, he knows in his spirit. As strong as its mother. Sometimes, during the days, he catches his mate absently stroking her rounded belly, and his chest swells with pride even as his gut clenches with a dull throb of need. He’d expected the pride. What male wouldn’t be proud to see his female growing with his child? But the arousal… he’d never known how desirable she would look like this. Seeing her body change to accommodate the growing life they’ve created stirs his need in a way he is not prepared for. Fortunately, her own desire seems to be in a constant state of readiness and though he knows that every time he stops to mate her they lose time, he can’t seem to help himself. He mates her roughly, gently, slowly, quickly, under trees, in the rain, against boulders in the water. She meets him with a wild desperation that awes him, singing prayers of thanks against her soft skin.

Her state is perplexing to him. Her moods change faster than the rain, at one instant pleasant and content and in the next full of enough ire to send him scurrying. Sometimes she lurches out of the water to vomit endlessly, until she helplessly heaves with nothing left for her stomach to give up. These strange things terrify him, especially the vomitting, which always has him tearing through the jungle around her with fear that she’s dying. But she always emerges from these bizarre bouts, seeming like her usual self again. Perhaps this is normal for land people? He tries to keep his mind open. 

After many days and nights, he finally finds the first part of his home tributary. It is still many days more but out of the main river, the current is not so strong and the water is clearer still. His mate seems to be happier as well, swimming easily through the water beside him and having fewer terrifying bout of sickness. Her belly is more rounded than ever and he takes every opportunity to touch it, stroke it. He even presses his ears and lips to it, eager to express how much he adores her and their child every chance he has.

They play games as they move up the tributary, chasing each other like they did so long ago, through vines and stones. She is as he imagined, tricky and quick and quiet, the stealthy, playful mate he’d hoped for and more. And it is as they play one of their chase games, winding through the roots of trees and fallen logs, that it happens.

His mate is ahead of him, swimming backwards and taunting him by sticking her tongue out. He is growling playfully, pursuing her while trying to fit through a tangle of roots she slipped through easily, growing belly and all. He is envious of her thoughtless grace, all his senses focused on her, and never sees them coming. 

It is only when a dark, scaled arm reaches out and snags his mate around her waist that the playful growl drastically shifts to one of dire intent, He gives up trying to navigate through the roots and simply tears past them, claws flared and fangs bared. His mate, eyes wide and mouth open in surprise, is hauled against the broad, scarred chest of an unfamiliar male. His colors are green like many of the river tribes in this tributary, but his scent is unfamiliar, and this unknown male has dared put hands on his  _ mate. _ He drives forward to a threatening distance, but not so close that the unknown male might harm his mate in retaliation, and roars his outrage at this offense. His mate, finally back in control of herself, thrashes in the other males grip, but her efforts barely garner any notice. The stranger glances down at her and the up at him, baring his fangs with a defensive, warning rumble. He answers with a growl of pure, deadly intent, making his demands perfectly clear -  _ release my mate. _

He doesn’t care a bit about the confused trill the other male sings, all the questions in the song, and repeats his growling demand. The other male tilts his head in confusion, hefting his bucking, furious, child-heavy mate like a dead arapaima and sings in trills and chirps -  _ your mate is of the land tribes? One such as this? What have you done? Who are you to defy our gods and spirits? _

He doesn’t know this male, doesn’t know what tribe he hails, and by spirits and gods alike, he will be damned if he will listen to such condescension from some low river  _ stone-brained  _ caiman-rutting fool who puts hands on his mate. 

He lunges forward and snaps his fangs, furious, and bellows into the water around them -  _ RELEASE MY MATE.  _

At the same time, the male jerks, as though in pain and one of his mate’s fine-boned webbed feet suddenly kicks up and connects with his jaw. She wriggles from the stranger’s grasp and darts behind him while the stranger pulls a bloody hand to his chest, shrilling in pain.

_ It is wild! _ He shrills into the water, and more from his tribe appear from the murky depths of the river, males of considerable size, and most scarred. He reaches behind himself to find his mate’s warm presence against his back, and slowly swims backward, away from the growing crowd.  _ It bites like a beast! It should be killed, like all land tribes!  _ The first male sings, earning an approving burst of song from his tribe-mates.

He bares his fangs and hisses to them all before announcing his name and tribe to them. He notices with no small amount of relish that several older males sink back from him when he sings of his lineage - his father and grandfather were great warriors in years gone by.  _ Any who put hands on my mate will lose them. I will forgive your offense if you will let us pass, but if any of your tribe seek to harm my mate I will tear your throats out, line our nest with your scales, and make widows of your females. _

And elder male shoves the first male aside forcefully and sings,  _ We seek no war with your tribe or with you, son of the upper rivers. Forgive the young ones, for they are foolish spawnlings who have no mates and know not what they threaten. I urge you pass, and sing kindly of us to your tribe. _

He manages to control his hissing. No matter how boastful and confident he tries to seem to this strange tribe, he is terrified. There are many of them, and only one of him, and his mate is child-heavy and vulnerable at his back. He can be relieved they will not press their advantage on him, and not care if his father’s name or courtesy has delivered him, later. For now, he must get out of this tribe’s territory as fast as he can. The elders may grant clemency, but that will not stop the younger males from chasing after.

_ We will go, and sing kindly of your tribe. Spirits be with you,  _ he sings, pulling his mate along with him as he moves to swim around the tribe before him.

_ And with you, _ the elder sings in return, motioning for his tribe-mates to move back. They do, but the younger males eye him with hostility. 

They all stare at his mate as they past, soft songs of fear and horror and awe whispering in their wake. As soon as they are out of sight, he pulls his mate with him and races upriver as fast as she can go. He’d be ashamed of fleeing but how often has his father told him that brave males often must know when not to fight as much as when to fight? No, with his mate and child so vulnerable, he cannot take the risk. 

Well after dark, when they settle into a protected lagoon for a sleepless, watchful night, his mate flashes him a worried look and hand-sings -  _ your tribe like that?  _

He wants to tell her no, but he is afraid to lie. He cannot say that they won’t react to her with the same suspicion and fear. That they won’t challenge him for mating her. Instead, he sings of his adoration for her with both his hands and voice.  _ No worry. I protect, forever. _

She seems marginally appeased by that and nestles into his embrace to sleep, but he gets no rest that night, guarding her tirelessly in the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I was almost late. I'm sorry. This week has kinda gotten away from me. I'm feeling better but things are still just crazy. No worries, though. I'll keep this coming. At least for a little longer. Two, maybe three, more chapters after this. 
> 
> 1\. So I basically sat down and read all I could about the Amazon and tried to imagine what swimming upriver pregnant would be like and all I could really come up with is the fact that it would be hell. It wouldn't necessarily be easy on our boy but still in the realm of doable, just hard. For Elisa, it would be impossible without help, and even with help, really, really slow.   
> 2\. So in a tribal culture you can see some pretty wide variances between to different tribe in the same ethnic (or in this case, species) group. Socially, tribes can be day and night from each other. But I knew I wanted to explore a population that was not our guy's native group, to start exploring the way communication occurs between individuals and in group settings before we get to the finish line and give Elisa a taste for possible reactions. It's her first real look at fish people who aren't her man, and I imagine that was rather jarring for her. I also figure that coloration might vary from tribe to tribe. Our boy in the movie had some pretty cool blue markings, but I imagine that greens, yellows, browns, and maybe even multi-colored markings might occur, as well as different skin and scale tones. There's a lot of variables to work with, and I'm looking forward to getting into more details.  
> 3\. It would have taken weeks to get that far up the amazon. According to the math, swimming at a consistent speed of approximately 20 mph (which is a nice halfway point between average human swimming and human swimming with carbon fiber dolphin fins) it would take approximately 7 days by driving if one were moving at that speed consistently in a straight line from the delta to our destination, but since the river does not flow in a straight line and they are not moving at a consistent speed, I multiplied that out by a lot. So I'm saying probably in the area of four weeks, maybe even five, to get as far as they are and there's still farther to go. So we're kind in the area of the State of Amazonas in Brazil, for now. It's kinda hard to get these distances cause they're not so well mapped. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this one. I've loved all your comments, and definitely would love to hear your thoughts as we finish this fic up. You guys rock and I hope you continue to do so. Cheers, lovelies, I'll see you in three days!


	17. Stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big warning! There is explicit violence in this chapter. I tried to avoid it but it kinda just happened. So please proceed with caution if explicit, graphic violence is a problem!

The downpour above water is heavy, the sound roaring through the river. It’s loud enough to block out most other sounds, and that makes him nervous. He is still wary of strange tribes, curious and suspicious of his mate. He has not seen any, as none have dared approach, but he can hear them. Now, though, the rain blocks out the whispers of their songs lurking just beyond his sight, and he is not sure if he’s relieved or more anxious as a result. 

The caimans are larger, the river otters more bold. The air and water smell familiar. He is close, he can feel it, but he has not heard familiar voices singing, has not seen familiar landmarks. He is paralyzed with indecision. Has he missed a turn onto the correct tributary? Has he passed it? Are they even still there?

After his capture, it is possible that his tribe moved to a new tributary. He was not far from the home lagoon when he was taken, and his father and uncles would have had the rest of the tribe to protect. But if they did… the best he can do is hope to pick up their trail. If he can just find the way to home lagoon.

His mate trails behind him. She has be quiet. Always silent, his mate, but never quiet… until now. When he asks if she is feeling well, if she is  _ okay _ , she smiles and confirms she is. Several times a day she swims up to his side and grabs his hand to press to her rounded belly, to let him feel the shifting and kicking of the growing child within. He is always delighted, even happier that she always chooses to share the experience with him. It helps him feel less isolated from her while she is so quiet. She shares less and less of her songs. Sometimes, he catches her staring at the forest canopy above them, at the flowers and animals and trees, her eyes wide. It is hard to read her dear little face when she does so. He tries to show her many things, bringing her fruits that are good for eating and flowers that smell pleasing, tries to make her feel at home as he can in this river, and she always smiles and kisses him for his trouble. But she remains quiet.

It is a lot to adjust to, he reasons to himself. Her life has changed a great deal and she has endured much. Perhaps she is just adjusting. He tries to respect her quiet, but he misses her songs and her flashing eyes and her wide smiles. For now, he focuses on keeping her safe. 

It is growing harder to do, though. As her belly grows, her movement becomes less graceful and more careful, ponderous. She is slower. He adjusts to her, lets her set their pace and distance, but he fears that if he cannot find his tribe soon, he will have to build a nest in the open river. It is a dangerous thing to do, and even more so with his mate so vulnerable. Caimans and other predators will be attracted to it, and anacondas will seek the warmth within. She would be safest with his tribe, protected by many eyes and ears and noses and by the sheer numbers. But they are fast approaching a point where continued travel will be too perilous and he will simply have to chance it. If he’s gone up the wrong tributary or missed a turn, it will take him weeks to correct with his mate’s slowed pace, and then weeks more to find the right spot. It would be safer to just build a nest and wait out her heavy time till after the child comes. He is not overly excited about attending her during her birthing alone, but compared against the possibility of being caught in the open river without shelter, he’s lost the option of being picky.

A tug on his arm jerks his attention back into reality and he turns to regard his mate. Her expression is sharp, and he tilts his head in curiosity at her.

_ Bad thoughts?  _ She asks, pointing to his head. He shakes his head in her manner.

_ Just thoughts, _ he assures her, reaching out to stroke her cheek affectionately before doing the same to her round belly.  _ Our child good?  _

She nods, flashing him a smile.  _ Kicking, _ she sings, and he chuffs. Their child is very active of late. He enjoys watching the shifting of her belly just beneath her skin as their child tries to swim within her. Every validation of what they’ve created gives him joy.

She snuggles into his side and he wraps an arm around her as he looks around, humming uncertainly. He has not been gone that long, and though everything feels familiar, he cannot find anything that confirms he’s going the right way. Everyday brings these choices, and he knows the fate of his mate and child often depends on these seemingly small choices. The weight of them often feels like stones tied around his neck. If he makes the wrong choice now, his mate could be vulnerable in the open river when her birthing comes. The right choice could see them back with his tribe. He feels paralyzed before the choice - turn back, or keep going?

His mate pulls from his embrace, tugging him forward a bit.  _ We go, your home? Your tribe?  _ She asks, and even though it’s hardly the most responsible thing he could do, he lets her lead him forward, nodding. He takes the lead and they go on, against the current, their pace slow to both accommodate her and allow him to search for some sign of his people.

They have travelled so long and so far he starts to wonder if there will ever be a time when they will be still. He wonders if he has ever been still. He loved his home, his people, but looking back now, he thinks he did not cherish them the way he should have. He was forever looking for chances to race away - down river, up river, into the jungle. He was teased, his constant movement dubbed childish antics that he never grew out of. Perhaps, somehow, he has always been trying to find a way to his mate. He likes to think that some part of his spirit has always reached for hers, across the distance that separated them. He wishes that he could have somehow spared her all the pain and fear that came with finding each other - he might have spared himself as well if he could. But he has to believe that he’s a better male for what he’s been through. If he does not, the bad thoughts find their way in. He will use the pain and wear it like thick scales, wield it like sharp claws. He will be stronger, for the sake of his mate and child, and he will cherish the home they make together.

If he can only find it.

A crash interrupts his thoughts, sending him sinking towards the river bed and pulling his mate with him. His mind tries to match the sound to thunder, so common during the rainy season, but he fails. It’s not thunder, it’s closer, more immediate. His thought is confirmed when branches and vines and debris fall into the river. Startled, his mate sinks deep, but he keeps his place, watching bits of vegetation sink around him as vines and leaves float on top. Distantly, over the roar of the rain, he can hear birds and monkeys shriek in protest before a heavy silence falls.

So familiar, that silence. He’d barely noticed it before, he was so focused on his little sister and cousin. It should have stood out like a capybara in a tree, the jungle he was raised in is never silent. Silence heralds the worst moments in his life. 

He looks behind and below him, to his mate watching him from the riverbed. Her pale skin, her luminous eyes, one hand supporting her belly as she watches him.

_ Come! I worry,  _ she hand-sings urgently. She does, he knows she does. Has any male ever been so blessed? Such a loving, gentle, wonderful mate. He’s so grateful to have been hers. To have given her pleasure, happiness, a new life to cherish… gratitude like he’s never known fills his spirit till he thinks he will burst.

It is suddenly painfully clear why he has suffered. He knows with every part him, mind and spirit. He was taken and he suffered and he anguished and he escaped and he took the most precious mate in all the waters, all for this moment. So that he would know what he’s seeing and hearing, that he’d recognize what is happening. So he can stop it.

He swims to her side fast enough to push her in the water.

_ My mate, my beautiful mate,  _ he hand sings, giving her the shape of their bond. She returns it but her expression is confused, worried.  _ I go.  _ They _ are here,  _ he tells her, emphasizing  _ they _ with sharp motions in his hand. It has always meant them, the ones who took him, between the two of them. Her hands fly to her mouth, covering it. He purrs to her, trying to soothe her.  _ I okay. I protect you, forever, _ he reminds her, grasping on her hands in his own and pressing it to his chest, where his heart pounds.  _ This, for you. Me, all for you, and for our child,  _ he continues, stilling her hands when she tries to sing back. He knows by the set of her stubborn jaw she intends to argue, and there is no time. He sings for her then, leaning his forehead for hers, listening to her draw sharp, frightened breath, letting his devotion surround her.  _ Swim upriver. Find my tribe. They safe for you,  _ he instructs her, pulling away. He knows, by instinct, if he lingers he will never go.

_ No!  _ She hand-sings violently, repeatedly, snatching his arm and pulling him back.  _ No! You, me, together! Forever! You sang!  _ She starts hand-singing fast, too fast for him to follow, but he watches, memorizing. If she knew how beautiful she was to him now…  _ I need you! We need you!  _

_ I protect, _ he promises her, prying her hands off his arms before he continues.  _ You, safe. Both you, safe. _

He darts away, faster than she can follow or snatch him back. 

He slips silently out of the water, adjusting immediately to the shift in weight and the feel of the rain on his back. The river has cut a steep bank into the earth here, and he uses it as a cover. Peering over it, he watches, silently, waiting…

He doesn’t have to wait long before he hears them. Land people, speaking their rough songs. He recognizes some, the songs of land tribes that live near him. Others sound different, more like the land tribes in the place where he found his mate. Like  _ Strickland _ . A silent snarl pulls his lips back from his fangs.  _ Oh, _ Strickland died too fast. He has regretted that, giving that monster a quick death. Images of sharp teeth beneath thin pale lips and the scent of sickly-sweet decay dance around the edges of his awareness, but he welcomes them now, for they are his scales and claws. Strickland died quickly. These interlopers will not be so lucky. 

He finally spots them, moving further in the jungle. They’ve brought their spirits-damned machines, the kind that eat trees. It explains the noise. He vaults the bank and creeps closer, keeping his chest and belly facing the ground and letting the dark colors of his back and shoulder camouflage him against the dense jungle floor. As he approaches it is easy to see that the land people are clearing trees around a large lagoon. It is, he notices, exactly the sort of lagoon river people, his tribe, would seek to nest in, safe from eddies and currents in the river and protected from predators. He creeps closer, carefully avoiding debris and twigs that would alert the intruders of his presence, but it’s clear that he needn’t have bothered - they are distracted by a swarm of ants.

He’s never been so happy for a swarm of ants in his life.

He’s just behind them now, watching. He can see no sign that the lagoon is inhabited by anyone from the surface, but he knows that the surface is deceiving. River people are nearly invisible from the surface, especially the young. But when he sees the cages, identical to the one Strickland kept him in, he confirms his suspicions. They are here to capture river people. To steal more as they stole him.

His land breath hisses out of him, his lungs seizing in his chest. What if they have already stolen more? Are there even now others trapped in those awful cages, forced to lay prone in stagnant water, only to be yanked out and tortured? His only comfort is that Strickland is not the one torturing - he watched that male’s spirit leave his eyes himself. He sucks in another breath, reminds himself that he must be steady and clear. He cannot think of what may have happened, and he must focus on what is before him. If he fails, his mate and unborn child are in grave danger. After they kill him, they will surely search the waters nearby and find-

There is a splash and great cry goes up. Many land people lunge towards the water, pulling on a line he’d not seen before. They heave, and as he watches, a net emerges from the lagoon.

His heart stills in his chest when he sees who the net contains.

The strangest thing is the instant recognition he feels. His sister has not changed from the last time he saw her. He can still remember, clear as moonlight, the her aggravated growls as he herded his cousin and little sister out into the river. She was arguing with a younger male, a distant cousin, who had failed to repair several traps. She only whistled a distracted farewell as he left, as she was older and had responsibilities to see to, but how fondly he remembers that whistle of hers. 

Now, though, her voice is a shriek of terror and rage. Her shimmering scales flash in the gray light as her lithe body bucks violently, claws ripping against the netting that he knows from experience will not tear. She bites and kicks and roars in impotent fury and his spirit aches for her as they drag her through mud and rotting vegetation, out of the water and into the dirt. She is face down, choking and spitting and still fighting with all her might. He wants to leap in, to rip them apart because  _ they dare? _ They  _ dare _ drag his sister through filth like a beast? He will teach them. He will rip out their jaws, each one, and offer all but the biggest to his sister to honor her as a huntress and honor his mate with the biggest. He will hang their spines from the trees as a warning to other land people. He will pry out their teeth and make necklaces of them for his mate and sister both. 

But as much as he aches to leap forward and begin making his dark thoughts a reality, there are about four land males facing towards the jungle, watching. Perhaps they heard him approach, but their eyes skim over him and they turn back to the struggle by the lagoon.

They laugh at his sisters continued struggles - at least, he notices, some do. The ones with darker skin, whose songs he understands more, hang back, whispering amongst themselves. He recognizes one particular song,  _ deus do rio _ , and he decides they alone will be spared his wrath. They are of the neighboring land tribes, who live along the river and show reverence to all those within it. In the days of his grandfathers, they offered tribute to the river tribes. Perhaps he shall remind them why their forefathers did so. 

The pale ones, though… perhaps it is wrong to hate his mate’s people so much but he cannot help it. They remind him of Strickland, standing over his sister and laughing. His sister has given up her violent writhing and lays gasping in the mud, hacking up filth. He knows better than to believe her ploy. She is an expert huntress and warrior, adept at playing at injury or weakness to lure foes to a false comfort. But he can see the faint tremor in her arms, and he knows she is afraid. He was afraid too.

Those memories of that awful day threaten to overcome him, but he pushes through it. He must be vigilant, wait for his chance to strike.

It comes suddenly, when one of the pale skinned land males steps closer to nudge his sister’s prone form with his foot. She immediately twists and tries to strike, but her fangs and claws are hindered by the net, effectively pinning her in the mud. The land male who nudged her jumps backward in surprise and another leaps forward to jab at his sister with a long, black, familiar shape. His sister shrieks in agony, and he clamps a hand over his mouth and the other over his throat, forcefully keeping himself silent. He would have given so much to have spare her that.

It does, however, give him his chance. 

He moves like a silent shadow, with barely a whisper of sound in his wake. The dark skinned land male’s see him, and they cry out, but not before he reaches his first victim. A calm silence settles over him, his mind eerily clear.

He has forgotten how short land males tend to be. Or has he grown taller? It doesn’t matter. He reaches around the male’s shoulders from behind, grabs his forehead, yanks his head up to expose his throat, and the rest is a simple flick of his claws. 

So ridiculously easy. 

The male lets out a gurgle and he releases his victim, letting him drop. Blood is warm and sticky on his hands. There is a moment of stunned silence, before everyone propels into simultaneous motion. The dark skinned land males flee. He understands only some of their songs, but enough to know they plead for mercy as they go. Hopefully, they will understand he’s granted it with their continued life. The remaining males, with their unnatural scents and alien faces twisted in horror and anger, turn towards him, and the one with the pain stick swings at him. 

He ducks beneath the blow, aimed at his head, and grabs the male’s wrist with both hands. The bones snap like twigs in his grasp. The male lets out a breathy scream, and that moment of surprised pain is all he needs to reach up and rip his throat free. 

Only a few more to go. 

He moves on to the next male, who is fumbling with one of those loud weapons - the kind Strickland used to nearly steal his mate’s life. He knows those weapons, they are fast and deadly, but he easily snatches it from the male’s hand and pitches it away. The final male stares in horror as he grasps this one’s jaw, wrenching it open and tearing it free from his skull. This is harder than their throats, he realizes, muscles bulging and fingers aching as blunt, square teeth dig into them. But he still finds it satisfying. 

The last male looks at his comrade, still alive but choking on his own blood, and turns to flee. The scent of fear and urine is thick in his wake.

He cracks the jawless one’s neck, ending his suffering, before turning to his sister. 

She stares at him like he’s a spirit. Glancing down at himself, he can understand why. He’s covered in blood, sluicing down his body with the rain. His ridges and claws are still flared in aggression. He doubts she can even recognize him-

_ Brother? Brother mine?  _ She sings suddenly, her voice warbling between terror and anguish and the faint, clear sound of joy. 

_ Sister mine, _ he replies, his voice sounding muted in the rain. He tries to sound confident, but he’s vaguely surprised to find himself still alive. He knows he should feel something, being reunited with his older sister after all he’s been through, but that curious, blank clarity still hangs over him.  _ Still yourself, and I will free you,  _ he instructs her, striding towards where the net still pins her.

_ Brother mine! Where have you been? How have you come home?  _ His sister wails, her voice high and trembling.  _ What have you done? What has been done to you? Tell me what tribe stole you, and I will rend their nests and leave only their females and offspring alive! What have you done, brother mine?  _

_ Still yourself,  _ he commands her sharply, as she has continued twisting on the ground as she sings desperately at him. She falls still, panting, watching him with a mixture of awe, joy, and horror. He finds the line and weight holding the net closed and unknots it, tossing the net over her and helping her untangle herself till she can scramble away. She dashes back and grabs the net in her hands, flinging it into the jungle.

_ Cursed thing! May your makers rot in their nests!  _ She scream-sings after it, before rounding on him. He can tell by her face she means to interrogate him, like she did when he was a youngling and she suspected he’d stolen from her traps for a snack. He has no time for that, though.

_ Go to the river,  _ he points back the way he came.  _ Go quickly there. My mate is in the open river alone. She is child-heavy. Take her to our tribe, and protect her as your own because she is mine.  _

His sister lets out a song that seems unnatural, both a scream and a sob at the same time. Her eyes are wide and wild.  _ You disappear and return with a mate! Where did you go? Why didn’t you tell us? _

_ I did not go, I was taken, as they sought to take you,  _ he cuts in before she can continue.  _ Did our cousin not tell you? _

_ He sang in hysterics that you were stolen by a monster that wounded with its eyes! We thought he dreamed it, or that the child didn’t understand what he had seen!  _ His sister’s song pains him, so full of agony.  _ We thought you lost to anaconda, or wolf-fish! I have mourned my brother a season and now here he stands, commanding his elder sister to go and guard his mate? And what will you do, oh mighty brother? Perhaps sneak away to steal another female? _

_ Cease your songs, sister mine,  _ he growls at her.  _ You know nothing of what you sing. Land tribes stole me away. I found my mate and escaped, and I have brought her here. I will sing of it to you later, but hear me, my mate is child-heavy and unguarded in the open river, and you must go and guard her. I will chase the one that fled. _

_ Leave that caiman-rutting coward! He would not dare to return! If a mate awaits you, and child-heavy, return with me to her side. I shall not let you leave my sight, brother mine. I fear I will lose you again,  _ his sister pleads with him, her song high and desperate. He has never heard her sing like this. It hurts his spirit, but the pain feels far away. 

_ No, you do not know. You have have not seen. If I leave one alive he will return and he will bring more. They are like ants, they follow where one goes. They are many and they are tireless. I must follow this one and kill him,  _ he tells her, as firmly as he can. 

_ Then I shall hunt him with you! If it is as you say, let me aid you in tracking him!  _ She sings, reaching out to grasp his arm, but he removes her hand. He hadn’t expected her to capitulate, exactly, but she is wearing his patience thin.

_ Spirits guide me,  _ he sings in a exasperated whistle,  _ Sister mine, I honor you as my elder and as the skilled huntress you are, but in this, you must trust me. The coward’s trail stinks, the greatest fool in the river could track him. Aid me in this, ease my mind, and go to my mate. She is alone and I fear for her. Let me have my vengeance against these. _

His sister stares at him, her wide eyes and narrow face reminding him eerily of his mother. So familiar, but so… strange. Has he been gone so long? Has he changed so much.

Before she can reply, he hears a thunk, and turns towards the sound.

To his horror, there his mate stands, dripping in the rain, cupping her belly protectively with one hand and the other against a tree, panting. She points desperately over his shoulder, and he wheels to see what-

A bang echoes through the trees. Birds squawk, monkeys shriek. His sister screams and pain blooms just below his heart. As though following the pain, he registers momentum, and before he can think, he finds himself on his back. There are sounds, his sister roaring, screams, then wet, sickly sounds. Thudding feet running towards him, a heavy thud. 

And then, like the moon rising, his mate’s face appears before him. The whites of her beautiful eyes are red, her dark hair streaming over her shoulder and heavy with water. 

It’s raining. It’s raining like it did that night, when she hung silent and still in the water like death.

But she didn’t die, he remembers. He saved her, and now her small, fine hands cup his face before desperately spreading over his chest. He grunts in pain as she presses her palm against something warm and wet there. The edges of his vision grow cloudy. His light stutters to life, and the warm, painful spot grows hot, but the light dims. Not enough, he realizes, remembering the angry bruises on his mate’s soft moon-skin fading under his hands.

Her face reappears over him, water streaming from her eyes.

_ Your light? You fix? Please!  _ She hand-sings to him. 

_ I protect,  _ he replies, his hands fumbling with the shapes.  _ I protect, keep you safe. Forever. Both of you, _ he continues.

_ Yes, you protect us! Forever! Stay,  _ she hand-sings, and her face threatens to shatter his spirit in his chest. Her eyes are red, her lips trembling with her hands as she curls over him. She is in pain, afraid and desperate.

Because he is dying, he realizes.

More thuds, faster, and his sister skids to a stop next to him, on her knees. She leans over him, pressing her hands over his mate’s.  _ Do not fear, brother mine, the coward is dead! I will give you his skull if you like! Why do you not use your light? Brother mine, your light!  _ Her song is panicky and high, and a silent sob racks his mate’s frame, and she bows her head to his. He lifts a hand to her cheek.

_ No light left,  _ he sings in a soft hum,  _ came too far. Hurt too much. She is my mate, sister mine. Isn’t she perfect? _

_ She is the most lovely mate, brother mine, I sing to the spirits in joy for how blessed you are! And a child too? I am blessed! You will give me many nieces and nephews to teach of hunting! But you must be strong now, so I may use my light!  _ He can feel her light flowing through her palms, but it’s too late, he thinks. He can feel something lodged inside him. It aches in his bones. He gently pushes his mate upright and brings his hands up.

_ I sorry, _ he hand-sings to her, and she shakes her head violently. He continues before she can start.  _ I sorry. I go. Stay with her,  _ he gestures to his sister.  _ My father’s daughter. She good. She protect. Both you and our child.  _

_ No no no no NO! You not go, you stay! We need YOU!  _ She denies him, but he strokes her face, knowing she has little choice in the matter now.

_ Sister mine, protect my mate. She is delicate, and she has no voice to sing. She sings with her hands. Swear this to me, so I may go to the spirits of our grandmothers in peace,  _ his song is muted and fuzzy. It seems to quiet. It’s hard to breathe. 

_ Of course I shall protect your mate, but only until you can do so yourself! Spirits-damned wound, close!  _ His sister is focused on the wound on his chest, but he needs more.

_ Swear it, sister mine,  _ he demands, as strongly as he can. 

_ Yes, I swear it, I shall protect her as mate-of-my-brother, now be silent so I may save your stone-brained life!  _ She screeches back in irritation. He decides that is as good as he will get.

He looks to his mate, rocking silently and hunched over him, clutching his hand to her face. He uses his free hand to make the shape of their bond to her, and she sobs, gripping his arm tighter. His eyes slide shut, but the sight of her in pain sets him ill at ease, so he calls up the memory of her quick, flashing half-smile.

That is the memory he will take with him to the spirits. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter three times. I kept trying to talk myself out of this. But every time felt dishonest, to myself as a writer and to you as my readers. And finally, here at the eleventh hour, I decided to do this and stick the plot I committed to when I started writing this months ago. 
> 
> I don't really have much in the way of notes here, but here's what little I do have.
> 
> 1\. The final destination is in Colombia, in a tributary of the Amazon that runs through a national park called Parque Nacionale Natural Rio Pure. It's right on the border between Colombia and Brazil so there's a good mix of language and dialects, but I decided to stick with our boy know Portuguese better, so I guess he lives more on the Brazilian side.   
> 2\. I'm not always a big proponent of the theme that pain has a purpose. Sometimes, things just happen. The universe is not always an ordered place. And I'm not going to say it was destiny or anything like that, but the big guy as a character needed a reason for it. A purpose. He could find closure for himself if he could just find the purpose. He thought it was Elisa, and to him, it was, but it was more than that too. It was also the baby, also his sister, his tribe. He was there in the perfect moment to protect everything that mattered to him and that was the purpose he needed.  
> 3\. All told, our couple have traveled in excess of approximately 38,000 miles. It's been a long journey.
> 
> I hate to leave you guys like this. I am sorry. There is one more chapter left, and I want to thank you all again for being such amazing, thoughtful, intelligent readers. Cheers, lovelies. I'll bring you the last in three days.


	18. Epilogue

It was damned hot.

And the hot wasn’t even the worst of it. No, the worst of it was the humidity. Never mattered how much it rained, always felt like Zelda was swimming in steam. A part of her still didn’t believe that  _ people  _  could actually live in a hell like this, but Lord help her, there they all were, goin’ about their daily business, pouring sweat.

“ It’s indecent,” she muttered under her breath, but of course, Giles had the hearing of a starving dog at dinner time.

“ It’s weather, Zelda, let it go,” he sighed, exasperated, Wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation half a dozen times a day from the Yucatan on. But that was months ago, and as fine a traveling companion as Giles was, she was still damned sick of it.

It had taken years to save up the money for this trip. Of course, it had been the first thing her fool mouth had sputtered out, shivering and dripping water all over Giles’ apartment. His hands were still stained with Elisa’s blood as she’d blurted it out. 

_ “ Didn’t they say he was from the Amazon? You think he’ll go home? if he saved her - we should find them.” _

And Giles, bless his fool heart, was a hopeless romantic who was so swept away by the shock of what had just happened, all he could do was say yes. And without either of them really agreeing to it or sitting down to make any plans, they just started saving money.

“ Starting to think I’d sell my soul for some good ol’ air conditioning.” Zelda muttered, fanning herself with the tattered remains of a guidebook.

“ Well, at least you’re getting your money’s worth. I’d have settled for a glass of ice water.” Giles replied dryly. He folded the map in his hands and took off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. She worried for him, the poor man. His health started turning for the worse somewhere around Panama, but he’d proven harder to nag that her old Brewster. He’d see no doctor, continually eager to press on. The next stop, he’d always say, next river, next tributary, next port.

If Zelda were being honest with herself, which she made a point to rarely do, she’d have given up ages ago if not for Giles. He had the energy of a much younger man, and it felt like she was always trotting behind him as he chatted up locals, introducing himself as a writer, wondering about legends of river gods, fish men, and the like.

They’d had a really good hit in southern Mexico. The locals had a local story about a mermaid with fins made of opal, skin like porcelain, and hair black as night. They’d spent weeks there, chasing the story from source to source until they finally found a young woman named Sofia who claimed she saw this mermaid with a scaled monster with fangs and claws. Damned if that didn’t fit the bill.

But the trail went cold there. Sofia didn’t see where the two went, only that they swam off in the night and she never saw them again. Giles took it as proof-positive that they were on the right track, proof that Elisa and the Asset had passed through. But God had always made Zelda a skeptic and all she could figure it proved was that a local girl had a keen imagination and a gift of the tongue.

“ We’re running out of river, Zel.” Giles said suddenly, snapping Zelda out of her thoughts.

“ That ain’t news, hon,” she sighed in reply. “ We been running out of river since we got to the last of main one. This is what, the fourth feeder?”

“ Third,” Giles corrected, his tone a touch defensive. “ But Elisa said that-”

“ That Strickland caught him in a tributary, I know.” Zelda finished, fanning herself again in agitation. In the weeks after it happened, as the inquiry Strickland’s death led to wound down, Giles has filled a notebook with everything he could remember Elisa saying about the Asset. The papers, now yellowed and worn with age and filled with notes, diagrams, scribbles, and taped on excerpts from official documents Zelda managed to pilfer from work, were everything they were at least fairly certain of. Which meant everything Giles’ took as the Lord’s word and everything Zelda was less skeptical of than the rest.

They’d come so far and endured so much, it stung to think they were close to calling it quits. Zelda knew that a part of her was ready for it to be over, but she also knew that it would never really be over, not for her and definitely not for Giles. The old man needed answers, and Lord help her, so did she. 

There were so few after Elisa and the Asset disappeared into the dark water.

*+*+* Four and a half years earlier *+*+*

The first time he wakes, all he knows is pain.

His chest is in agony, and he heaves, struggling to escape. Hands push him back down, a cacophony of voices assaulting his ears. It hurts so much, and panic grips him, but he can't remember why. The pain leaves so little room for anything else.

Then something digs into his chest, claws scraping against his ribs, and he shrieks. A small sobbing breath catches his attention, and he cranes towards it desperately. Somehow, that breath is more important than anything else. If only he can get to it, everything will be better. 

But then claws in his flesh gauge deeper and his breath escapes him in a shrill scream, and blackness takes him.

*+*+* Present *+*+*

Elisa’s body was never found, and that was cause for hope. For a year, Zelda had read the paper everyday about every washed up Jane Doe, praying that it wouldn’t be Elisa… but it never was. Giles was certain she wasn’t breathing when the creature took her, but if that was the case, what had happened to the body? Then there was the mysterious phone call Giles had received weeks later, with just rhythmic tapping on the receiver on the other end of the line. Giles was positive that it was Elisa, trying to tell him she was alive. But after that, no news. Not a peep. Quieter than a door mouse graveyard.

Zelda had started visiting Giles at least once a week, to check up on him and make sure he was eating. The first months were the worst. She had her own random crying jags to deal with, but Giles refused to get out of bed. He’d only bathed when she’d threatened to dump a bucket of cold water on his bed. Then Giles had begun obsessively drawing them - first Elisa, from every angle and in every outfit she’d owned, hair down, up, tossed in wind, smiling, thinking, crying, staring out of the canvas with those mysterious eyes. Then it was the creature, crouched by the armchair, delicately peeling hard boiled eggs, petting a kitty, curled like a child in the bathtub. Then the two of them together, embracing after she came home, sitting face to face in the bathtub, playing with one of the cats, him watching her boil eggs, mimicking her signs back to her.

After the drawing came the research. Giles took out every book in the library about the Amazon and all the other rivers around it, and then he started requesting more. Every week he showed her his new finds, copies of detailed maps and descriptions of what all lived there. He memorized it all, knew every name of every stream and valley in the whole damned basin. He lamented over how little of the river had been explored constantly.

Two years to the day they’d lost Elisa and the creature both, he asked, “So when are we going?” Zelda hadn’t even remembered she’d said that, but after he reminded her, it was her turn to be helpless to do anything but say yes.

It still had taken her two years more to save up enough money. Giles had sold nearly everything he owned, made his money doing comissions and portraits in the park. They made it work.

The one dark spot was Brewster. Zelda kept no secrets from her husband, and made clear what she was doing from the start. But the fool man had just grunted every time she tried to tell him about the plans for the trip, right up until the day before she was due to leave, when he had the gall to try to forbid her to go. She’d told him exactly what she thought, and asked him one more time to come with her. When he refused, she walked out the door with her bag and spent the night at Giles’ apartment. They left the next day, and Zelda hadn’t spoken to her husband since. It hurt, but in a way that was starting to mend. 

“ We ain’t out of river yet. Could be right up river now, and all we gotta do is go find them.” Zelda said, smacking her improvised fan lightly against Giles shoulder before he sunk too deep into melancholy. 

“ Yeah…” he replied without conviction. “ I think that’s our boat.”  He added, pointing to a rickety little raft poling up to the riverside where they stood in Manaus, Brazil. “ The boatman said that he knows a tribe upriver, towards Colombia that worships a river god. That they make sacrifices to it.”

“ We’ve heard that before.” Zelda reminded him sternly. Best not to let his hopes get too high up. Because hope hurts worse than anything else.

*+*+* Four and a half years earlier *+*+*

When he wakes a second time, the pain is a constant searing in his chest. There is the fading cool burn of light but when he tries to use more, there is no reaction. He is too tired to wonder too much about why that is, and rolls his head to the side. Curled next to him, he finds her.

His mate.

He feels an agonizing breath escape him but he barely notices. She is too lovely, he thinks, curled up around her belly, loose hair floating in the water around her. She’s asleep, her face tightened in worry. Her soft lips are turned down and her funny brows are scrunched together. She’s worried about him, he knows, but it’s hard to remember why. 

He tries to reach for her, craving the feeling of her skin against his hand. He needs to know she isn’t a dream, but his arm feels so heavy. Sleep calls to him but he fights it. Something moves on his other side, and when he rolls his head to see, his father’s worried gaze meets him.

There is no song in any tribe’s sounds that would express how relieved he feels.

_ Be still, son of mine. Your mate is safe and rests in your father’s nest. Be still and heal. I shall not lose my son on the eve I gain a daughter,  _ his father sings in his smooth, rumbling voice that has always been so calming.

He tries to sing back, but his father shushes him with a gentle croon.  _ Do not sing, my son, your sister has told me all she can and it is enough. You will tell me the rest when you are well. _

_ Dying,  _ he replies, and pain blooms again in his chest, choking him.

_ You surrender so easily with your child-heavy mate just at your side? You would leave her alone and unprotected amongst strangers? What has happened to my proud son that he would behave so dishonorably?  _ His father asks, and though the tone of his songs is wry, the chastising still stings.  _ Be still, my son, and your family will make sure you meet your offspring. _

He can no longer fight the heavy pull of sleep and rolls his head again to watch his mate as he drifts back to black sleep, devoid of dreams and pain.

*+*+*Present*+*+*

When they were back in Iquitos, what seemed like a thousand years and a lifetime ago, asking about river gods and mermaids in the Amazon, people laughed at them like they were crazy. Giles took it all in stride - something about being an artist that made his skin thick to that kind of thing. But Zelda never could stomach it well. On some level she understood that asking about mermaids and fish-men was more than a little ridiculous, and if someone were asking around her neighborhood about that kind of thing she’d laugh too. But wasn’t just some hoaky myth to her, it was the last line she had to a friend she missed something terrible. 

But back Iquitos, when they said they were going further up the Amazon to search the tributaries for tribes with legends about river gods, the laughter stopped and even the guides vying for their cash grew hesitant.

“ Don’t go there, Senhor,” they’d say to Giles, who usually had to do all the talking with Zelda whispering urgently behind him. “ It’s the green hell.”

Zelda had no notion of how any place on God’s green earth could be so bad as be called hell, and she certainly didn’t think that Hell proper was green. But then she came here, and she changed her mind.

This was definitely the green hell.

If she’d thought Manaus was hot, she knew now she was a naive fool. It was so hot in that damned jungle she could hardly breathe, and so humid she felt like she was choking. She hiked up her skirt and rolled up her sleeves and unbuttoned her blouse and anywhere else in the world it would have been  _ indecent  _ but Lord help her, in this god-forsaken forest is was  _ survival. _ And as poorly as she felt, Giles looked worse. Sometimes the poor man was so overcome he couldn’t even stand. He was pouring sweat constantly, but his lips always seemed dry, no matter how much water he drank. Zelda worried about him. 

She also worried for herself. They hadn’t passed a village in days, though the owner of the rickety boat they’d hired insisted there was one ahead, the last one before the Colombian border. He kept saying just a little further, and Zelda was starting to think he didn’t have a clue and was just looking to keep them on the damned boat longer so he could get paid more. And if that man thought he could swindle Zelda Fuller, boy did he have another think coming.

Before Zelda could fall into her usual fantasy of how badly she was going to tear their boatman a new one, a shout in Portuguese from the shore startled her. Giles, who had managed to drift off into a nap with his book still in his hands, snorted awake, and the boatman started shouting towards the shore in turn.

Zelda stood and saw the commotion, they were coming upon a village, and the men were shouting at them with guns. The first time this had happened, Zelda had been terrified, but now this was just business as usual. Always was a little tense when the guns came out though.

Whatever the hubbub was about, the boatman settled it fast and they docked on a sketchy structure comprised mostly of sticks. Once they got ashore, the children all stared first at Giles and then at Zelda, fascinated by the strangers, while Giles, in halting Portuguese, began to ask his question, with the help of their boatman/translator. He pulled out his oiled and waterproof folder to show them the sketch of the creature he’d done, just a simple profile of him walking. The instant he did, the gathered villagers jerked away, mother’s shielding their children’s eyes and men gesturing angrily. Giles took the hint and hurriedly put the sketch away.

“ Lord, they did not like that.” Zelda muttered as he backed up, hands up in the universal “don’t mean harm” gesture.

“ Everyone’s a critic.” Giles replied dryly, as though this was anytime or place for his particular brand of humor. 

“ They do not speak of that one on your paper. He is a god in the river.” The boatman translated from the angry shouts. “ To speak his name is blasphemy.”

“ Have they seen him? The river god?” Giles asked, and if he were a puppy, his ears would have perked up.

After a pause for translation, the boatman replies, “ Yes, these three men have seen him. He killed four white men. About four years ago.” 

“ Lord!” Zelda gasped, because what if it was their fish-man, and where was Elisa if it was?

“ Do they know where he is now?” Giles asked, because he was always focused on the goal. 

Again the translation, dozens of voices talking at once and so fast it was a wonder that the boatman could understand anything at all. “ They say no, they do not go into his territory, but they leave offerings for him.”

“ Show us.” Zelda demanded. 

It took some negotiation and some money changing hands. The villagers refused to do it out of deference to their god, which Zelda resisted the urge to chuckle at. If they knew how their god mooned over Elisa years ago, she wondered what they’d think then. The boatman agreed to take them to the location where the villagers leave their offerings, but no further, and only if they agreed to take an offering of meat and an iron pot with them. It’s odd but they agreed anyway, and then they’re off down the river again.

Zelda sat stiffly, forcing herself to calm down and reminding herself how bad hope hurts, but Giles paced, excited and agitated. 

“ We’re close, Zel.”

“ Now don’t you start with me, Giles. You sit down before you make me a nervous wreck,” Zelda snapped, motioning for him to sit. She also silently added  _ and before you give yourself a heart attack  _ but she didn’t say it out loud because Lord knew that man was tetchy enough about his health. 

Giles sat obligingly but jumped up moments later, pacing up and down the narrow boat. “ This really could be it, Zel.”

“ You’ve said that before, Giles. And you were wrong then.”

“ But it really could be them this time!” Giles cried, and Zelda didn’t reply because what could she say? It could be but most likely, it wasn’t. The odds that Elisa and her man and managed to swim all the way from Maryland to the deepest part of the Amazon and made it alive were higher than Zelda even wanted to think about. 

But damn if that hope didn’t just hang on by the thinnest thread.

*+*+* Four years ago *+*+*

He is returning from swimming the river when his cousin finds him.

Recovering from his wound has been a long process. It had to be healed in stages, and even when the wound was closed, he still felt agony when he tried to move. Over weeks his family had to hold him down to dig out slivers of metal from his flesh. It is a difficult thing to endure, and even now he thinks they have not removed all of those slivers, but the pain has become much more tolerable. 

And as ever, his silent guardian spirit has not left his side. For every painful, tortured movement, his mate has held her place, steadfastly beside him. He knows those first few weeks were especially difficult for her. She was surrounded on all sides by strangers, and had difficulty knowing who was a friend and who was not. He discovered that not all his tribe were welcoming of their new sister, but his own father and sisters had welcomed her into their nests without hesitation. He thinks, on some level, that his family was so relieved to have him back that they would have accepted it if he told them he’d mated a dolphin. They eagerly described her as lovely and caring, and told him of how fiercely she defended him in his sick-nesting.

_ She is a tiny warrior!  _ His elder sister shrills joyfully.  _ She guarded you like a jaguar guarding her cubs! And child-heavy too! I’d not have believed it if I’d not seen her snap her teeth at our cousin’s mate-of-her-cousin.  _

It makes for an amusing image in his mind, his little delicate mate snapping her teeth at a big warrior at his greatest strength, but he believes it whole-heartedly. His mate has the heart of a warrior, and is more than able to hold her own against his tribe. He’s proud and grateful, especially for his elder sister, who followed his mate in case someone challenged her back while he was still sick-nesting.

But of late his precious one has taken to remaining in the nest. Her belly has grown rounder at an alarming rate, and her ponderous movement has become even more difficult. Her breathing has become labored and she sleeps less every night. Her general good mood has devolved and become a constant state of discomfort.

Her time is nearing, he thinks.

Still, he tries to be more active, swimming around the nest and into the river to build his strength again. He spent many weeks unable to move, in agony, and now that most of the pain has subsided, it is important to move around until he is able to rejoin the other warriors and hunters. Sometimes his father or sister join him. His little sister, who greeted him when he woke early on by sobbing loudly over him and blamed herself for his capture, sought to repay her perceived debt by attending his mate constantly. She was already learning his mate’s hand-songs, and faster than he did. His mate seems to enjoy having someone new to talk to, and though some part of him is jealous and doesn’t want to share her attention with anyone, he can’t bring himself to deny her a connection with another female, and a member of her new family. 

His father dotes on her as well, always bringing her fruits he finds in the jungle and offerings left by the land tribes. He brings a string of pretty stones that delights her, clapping her hands over her belly. His elder sister brings her the choicest parts of her hunts, the shellfish she so prefers, and happily gets into screaming fights with anyone who dares argue. Even when the pain in his chest threatens to tear his spirit from him, he is happy to watch his family bond with his precious one, listening to his father and his sister argue whether the child will be male or female and his younger sister practice the hand-songs while his mate curls into his side.

This morning, he woke to find her curled there, as usual, around her tight belly. She is asleep, which has happened less and less recently. He palms her belly possessively and nuzzles her soft hair before slipping out of their nest for a long swim to stretch his muscles.

Pushing against the current feels good, feels right. Weight he has carried so long around his neck is at long last lifted. His mate is safe, and though his heart aches for her nearness, he is content to know she and his unborn child rest safely with his family. After so long, everything feels right. Sometimes, he still feels the bad thoughts lurking nearby, but it is easy to ignore them when so much goes right.

But today, as he comes back, his younger swims to him, nearly crashing into him in his rush. It is the same cousin who tried to free him when he was caught in Strickland’s net, and he bears the same scar for his efforts on his shoulder. His tribe healed the young male, and in turn knew how to heal him. All that has happened, he has learned, has happened with purpose. Today, the male is frantic, though, grabbing his arm in his rush.

_ Elder cousin, you must come, your mate has left your nest!  _ The young one cries.

A chill races down his spine.  _ Explain your meaning? She is child-heavy and cannot swim well, where does she go? _

_ To the land! She is even now trying to climb the river bank! Your sister sent me for you, she fears your mate has birthing sickness! _

Another chill, accompanied by a clenching of his gut that pains the scar on his chest. He spares no more breath for songs and races the way his cousin come, following the sound of frantic song. He finds his elder sister swimming along the river bank, her frantic screeching attracting the attention of the whole tribe.

_ Sister mine, what happens? Where is my mate?  _

_ Our sister fears birthing fever takes her! She will not come back into the water! Spirits, brother mine, I fear this greatly!  _ His sister wails, arms around her stomach as though it pains her.

His sister remembers their mother better - she was older when their mother died. Birthing sickness took her, a terrible fever that made her see visions that frightened her so terribly she tried to swim into open river to escape it. She had to be restrained, and the fever took her after she gave birth to their little sister. It was a great loss, but he remembers the tribe had been grateful that at least the baby had been spared. He has lost cousins and aunts and tribe members to birthing sickness before. The idea that his mate could be so afflicted hollows his gut in horror.

_ Does our younger sister attend her?  _ He asks, already tearing for the riverbank.

He doesn’t hear her answer before he surges out of the water to find his mate, leaning over and bracing her arm against a tree while the other cups her belly. His little sister is frantically hand-singing to her, but his mate is paying little mind. He races over to them.

_ My mate! You okay? Bad?  _ He asks when he arrives, but his mate’s eyes are screwed closed, her lips pressed into a thin line as she rocks from side to side. 

When she does open her eyes, he finds them shimmering and wet.  _ My mate, our child comes,  _ she tells him. His spirit lurches in his chest, which hurts, but he ignores it. 

_ Come back to river,  _ he tells her, stroking her back soothingly.  _ I protect. _

_ You protect forever. Cannot protect from this,  _ she gestures down at her belly, then grimaces, leaning more heavily into the tree.  _ I hurt,  _ she sings, repeating the hand song forcefully as her eyes squeeze closed and leak water, and she begins to rock again.

He slips an arm around her shoulders and slides between her and the tree, putting her weight on him and purrs to her. When she finally stops rocking and looks up to him, he tries again.  _ Come back to the river, my mate. I help. Family help,  _ he promises her, pulling her gently in that direction. She fights him, releasing him fully to lean against the tree again. He finds himself envious of a tree and wonders if all mated males feel like this.

_ No river, _ she hand-sings, her movements sharp. He cocks his head at her, because he still doesn’t know the hand-song for  _ why,  _ and her lips pull down tighter, more water leaking from her eyes.  _ Our child, maybe not like you. Not like this,  _ she reaches up to touch her gills gently, fluttering in her distress. His own flex in sympathy.  _ Maybe not breathe in river. I fear. No river. Our child come here. _

He gauges her quickly, but finds her jaw set in the most stubborn way he’s ever seen. She will not move in this, unless he physically moves her himself. He doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to distress her any more. And, he reasons with himself, she is born of the land tribe. He can change her with his light until she looks nothing like what she did, but he can never change what she is. It is the way of land people to give birth on land, he knows, and he has often heard it is best not to argue with a birthing female. 

He turns to his sister.  _ Sister mine, fetch our aunts and cousins. Our offspring shall be born here,  _ he tells her, and her gills flatten in shock. 

_ Brother mine, if she suffers from the birthing sickness, we must take her to water to cool her,  _ she reminds him. He still fears that illness, but he must not force his ways on her. He’d sworn he’d never take her choice. 

_ She is not feverish, she does not see visions. She labors for her child. Fetch our family, sister mine. She needs us now,  _ he tells her, and she nods and goes to obey. She was always the meeker of his sisters.

He takes the tree’s place again, letting her lean her weight onto him as she rocks again.

Her pains come and go rhythmically, like waves in the big water. She paces, distressed, leaning her weight onto him whenever the waves overcome her. Her pains grow and and plague her till she can scarcely breathe, and his spirit aches for her. She slams her hands against tree trunks, fists them against his chest, water streaming from her eyes and mouth open in silent cries.

Bad thoughts creep in on him. Images of blood, sharp teeth, sick-smelling breath -

His father pulls him away, lets his sisters and aunts take his place with his mate.

_ Breathe, my son,  _ his father sings as they reach the water.  _ Breathe. She is strong. Your offspring is strong. The pains seem terrible now, but the memory of them passes easily when you look into your child’s eyes.  _

_ I fear for her,  _ he keens. His chest hurts so much.  _ I fear for her. Did it hurt this much with my honored mother? _

_ Every time, my spirit felt as though it would fly apart,  _ his father sings softly in return.  _ And every time, as I held each of you in my arms, it was worth the pain and more. Trust in her strength, my son. Trust the female you were born to protect, and follow her until the end of this trial. She will lead you to happiness you’ve not yet known. _

They go back to the riverbank, and finds his mate on her hindquarters in the vegetation, clearly distressed. He pays little mind to his aunts, who crowd around her to try to provide her comfort and aid, and shoves his way to her.

_ I hurt,  _ she hand-sings as he drops to his knees beside her.  _ I hurt!  _ Her hands fly faster than he can understand.

_ Mate-of-my-brother sings of something that is wrong. The child should be born, but does not come _ , his sister translates.

His eldest aunt, his father’s elder sister, checks between his mate’s legs and he has a moment where he fears he might attack his own aunt in a territorial fit before he remembers that his mate needs the wisdom of these elder females, and so does he. Some small part of him simply hates that anyone else will see her there, for any reason.  _ She is ready for this child to come, _ his aunt sings, her voice high with worry.  _ I know not how to aid her. She is different than us,  _ the older female continues, whistling in confusion and helplessness. 

How he’d feared this. That her difference would keep her separate, isolate her. That it would harm her. Now, he fears it may cost him both his mate and child, and it will all be because he just doesn’t know enough about what she is to help her.

But then, as though kindly spirits seek to bless them, his mate tenses and digs her blunt claws into his shoulder, and the elder females near her legs sing in surprise as a wetness rushes from her. He smells no urine, doesn’t understand what has happened, but he quickly forgets that when his mate twists to grab him with both hands. 

_ River!  _ She hand-sings when she releases him.  _ River! Take me now! _

He swoops her into his arms before she completes the last hand-song, racing into the water with a splash. 

He can hear his tribe following, but he doesn’t care. Everything he is focuses on her as she twists again, pressing her back into his chest and leaning into him. His hands grasp her shoulder and hip, respectively, on instinct, and he leans back, letting her lean further. He feels her entire body tense, her hips pressing into his stomach as she curls inward with the effort before she sags against him, gills gasping frantically.

His sister and aunt arrive first, just as she tenses and curls again. He croons, unsure of why, but she tenses harder in reaction to the sound, digging her claws into his arms hard enough to draw blood. He doesn’t care. Nothing matters anymore but her and this moment.

She sags and tenses again, mouth set so tight and body so strained he fears she’ll break-

A new song joins the river in a rush, and his aunt quickly cradles the newborn, checking it before quickly transferring it to his mate’s arms. His eyes lock on the babe against his mate’s pale breast, gray skin and tiny dark scales and heaving chest. 

It is  _ so small.  _ Fear clenches his chest painfully. Something is wrong, it should not be so small, should not be  _ gray- _

He sees fluttering gills, and a high, clear cry reaches his ears, and the babe’s gray color flushes quickly to a fine silver. His mates back shudders and he peers around her head to find her eyes shimmering. She gives him a trembling smile and his spirit  _ aches.  _ Always, he thinks she cannot be more beautiful, and she finds a way to surprise him. He looks back to the child against her chest, watching raptly as she gently adjusts the babe and brings a nipple to its mouth.

It’s only then that he learns he has a daughter. 

Possessive rage overcomes him in a hazy cloud. His mate and daughter are not in his nest, and their are too many eyes watching. Rather than snap his fangs at his tribe, he gathers his mate into his arms with all the gentleness he can manage, and quickly retreats to the privacy of the nest he built for her. 

Safely ensconced in the nest, he curls around her and watches his nursing daughter. He cannot stop staring at her, absorbing every detail he can see. Her eyes are closed but her lips are soft and full like her mother’s, and her face is long, like his. He can see the familiar blue markings of his family across her brow and cheeks, and fine, silver webbing between tiny fingers fisted against his mate’s breast. 

Tentatively, wary that he may not be welcome in this tender moment, he reaches to touch the babe’s head. His mate looks up at him and smiles, so brightly he thinks the moon does rise with her. 

_ Our child,  _ she hand-sings,  _ our daughter. _

They have done the impossible four times now, he realizes.

_ Our daughter, _ he confirms with his hands, then sings his adoration for her both her way and his, filling the river with the sound of everything she means to him.

He will name their daughter after the moon.

*+*+* Present *+*+*

_ Green hell indeed,  _ Zelda thinks.

They found the place where the villagers leave their offerings. And then they tromp onward, without a guide, into this awful forest armed only with the meat, the pot, water canteens, and a map in what is hopefully the direction of a tributary. 

They were actually, literally, living on a prayer. 

Zelda focused mostly on trying really hard not to think about contracting malaria from all the damn mosquitos that seemed to think she was a five-star restaurant, and Giles focused on trying to find the tributary in question. The fool was so busy looking at his damned map he nearly fell in the water when they found it.

Zelda reached forward and caught him by the back of his shirt before he fell into the water, narrowly avoiding getting smacked by his pinwheeling arms, and then she heard it. A clear chirping whistle, followed by a series of growls and clicks. She remembered sounds like that, from the night on the dock so long ago. 

“ Did you hear that?” Giles asked in a whisper, crouching slightly. Zelda nodded, a finger to her lips, and started to creep forward.

In the shade of a tree, just past a thick tangle of vines, sat a creature unlike any she’d ever seen. Sat upon a stone, surrounded by blooming jungle flowers, a pale woman braided her own long black hair. Along her arms and legs ran beautiful fins that shone like opals in the dim, dappled sunlight filtered from the canopy. Her full breasts were bound in tattered cloth and her pale skin seemed shimmer in a rainbow of color, dotted with pale scales. Her wide eyes were dark and focused on something just before her, smiling, and her belly was round.

“ Good God.” Giles whispered, and the mermaid Sofia had insisted was real so long ago snapped her head up in their direction, tensing to dive for the river. A ripple of water preceded her and her narrowed stared at them ominously. “ Elisa?” Giles asked, his voice a faint croak.

The whole forest seemed to go still. The mermaid’s eyes widened.

“ Giles? Zelda?” she asked, her hands flying up in familiar shapes and only then did Zelda see what was still the same, not what had changed. 

She still had the same smile, the same color eyes, the same nose and jaw. It was still Elisa, just a wild, mythical version of her. 

“ Elisa, honey!” Zelda cried, tears already pooling, stumbling to try to find the way around the water to her friend, but Elisa held up her hands, shaking her head hard, and this time it was Giles who pulled Zelda back just in time before the water surged up before her.

She might not have recognized him immediately if not for the scar on his shoulder where Strickland had shot him and those eerie eyes of his, staring her with deadly intent. He was bigger than she remembered, more scarred.

But then Elisa, behind him, clapped, and he turned to her, clicking and growling.

“ No, it’s my family! Remember? From before the water?” she signed sharply. 

Zelda could see the creature’s arms moving, but not what he signed in return.

“ I know, you’ll protect me. But it’s my family! Be good, my husband.” 

With a chuff, the big fish-man turned back to them and in near perfect ASL, said “ Hello. Welcome to my river. Do not distress my husband,” and vanished into the water with barely a splash.

And then there was Elisa, pregnant and beaming at them, and there was a little silver child clamoring out of the water into her lap, and it was all so much to take, all Zelda could do was blurt out;

“ Did he just call you his husband?!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There. A little late. But done. 
> 
> I don't really have any notes about this one, other than the fact that it was difficult to write. I'm having a hard time letting go of this fic, but it is time. 
> 
> I want to thank you all for making this such an incredible process to go through for me. Each and every one of you that left kudos and comments or even just read it have made this the most fulfilling writing project I've had in a long time, and I want to make sure you all know it. I hope that you've enjoyed this story, and I hope that the last chapter lived up to the rest. There was a lot of ground to cover, but I'm happy with where we landed. 
> 
> Again, thank you all for a wonderful experience, and please, feel free to share your thoughts with me. When I'm able to revisit SoW, I hope I can bring you some new stories that you'll enjoy just as much. 
> 
> Cheers, lovelies. You all rock.


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